Fujimori disappointed by loss in Japan polls
Posted: 30 July 2007 0614 hrs

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LIMA : Former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori expressed disappointment Sunday over his apparent loss in Japanese parliamentary elections, his spokesman said.

Carlos Raffo said Fujimori - who contested the Japan polls while under house arrest in Chile facing an extradition request by the Peruvian government - accepted the defeat, while admitting that his followers "had been enthusiastic about the idea of him being a senator in Japan."

Fujimori, who was Peru's president from 1990-2000 but who holds Japanese nationality thanks to his parents, entered the race for Japan's upper house last month in a dramatic twist to Lima's long efforts to try him for human rights abuses.

Critics in Peru suspected he hoped a victory in Japan would allow him to avoid trial in Peru if Santiago decides to extradite him.

Preliminary results of the Japan election after voting closed showed Fujimori lacking enough votes to gain a seat in the upper house under the banner of the small, conservative People's New Party, according to Japanese broadcaster NHK.

"We are sorry he did not achieve the goal. It is another chapter in the story of the future return of the president to Peru," Raffo said.

Raffo, a Peruvian legislator, said Fujimori's defeat in Japan had a bright side, "that once the president's extradition case is finished, he will have greater freedom to return in the shortest possible time to Peru" to resume his political activities.

But Peru's Foreign Minister Jose Garcia Belaunde said he was not surprised at Fujimori's failure to get elected.

"It was another error for the former leader," he said.

In early July a senior Chilean judge rejected the recommendation of his country's attorney general and turned down Peru's extradition request for Fujimori, saying there was not enough merit to the charges against him in Peru, which include being behind the mass killings of protestors in two cases in the early 1990s.

Peru has appealed the ruling to Chile's Supreme Court, which is not expected to make its judgment for several months. - AFP/de