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Peru The Executive
The president, who must be Peruvian and over
thirty-five
years of age, was elected to a five-year term by direct
popular
vote, along with the first and second vice presidents. The
president could not serve two consecutive terms.
The constitutional president had a wide range of powers
and
served as chief of state and commander in chief of the
armed
forces. He had the power to appoint members to the Council
of
Ministers and the Supreme Court of Justice, submit and
review
legislation enacted by Congress, rule by decree if so
delegated
by the Congress, declare states of siege and emergency,
and
dissolve the Chamber of Deputies, if it voted to censure
the
Council of Ministers three times in one term of office.
In practice, the constitutional president had even more
power, as he had a remarkable amount of freedom to rule by
decree. Hernando de Soto, an adviser to the Fujimori
government,
stated in October 1988 that 95 percent of Peruvian laws
were
passed by presidential decree. Article 211 of the
constitution
gave the president the authority "to administer public
finances,
negotiate loans, and decree extraordinary measures in the
economic and financial fields, when the national interest
so
mandates and with responsibility to give account to
Congress." An
extraordinary number of measures--134,000 per five-year
mandate,
or 100 per working day--were passed in this manner in the
1970s
and 1980s. In the words of De Soto, "every five years we
elect a
dictator".
As no midterm elections for Congress were held,
opposition
parties had no means of strengthening their position once
the
president was elected. Moreover, local and regional
governments
have remained underdeveloped and largely dependent on the
central
government for resources. Thus, power has remained
concentrated
in the central government. As the president could bypass
Congress
with relative ease and rule by decree, power was even more
centralized in the persona of the chief executive. Without
consecutive reelection or midterm elections, there was no
mechanism by which to make the president accountable to
the
electorate.
Under the Fujimori government, De Soto was instrumental
in
initiating a reform of this process, the Democratization
of the
System of Government, which required laws to be submitted
to
public referendum before they could be passed. A
watered-down
version of this reform was passed in March 1991. Although
this
version was not expected to have notable effects on the
actual
process, the debate over reform played an important role
in
heightening public awareness of the accountability issue.
The Council of Ministers consists of a prime minister
and the
specific sectoral ministers, in areas such as economics,
education, health, and industry. In 1986, during the
government
of Alan García Pérez (1985-90), a Ministry of Defense was
created, unifying the three armed forces under the
auspices of
one ministry. Prior to this, the army, navy, and air force
each
had its own ministry. The ministers could be called to
appear in
Congress for an interpellation (interpelación) at
any
time, as could the entire cabinet (the latter no more than
three
times per term). It is traditional for all ministers to
resign if
the prime minister resigns.
It has also been traditional for the prime minister to
serve
concurrently as economics minister, although there have
been
several exceptions. After the resignation of a very
popular and
powerful prime minister, Juan Carlos Hurtado Miller, in
February
1991, President Fujimori separated the posts of prime
minister
and minister of economy, appointing Carlos Torres y Torres
and
Carlos Boloña Behr, respectively, to those positions. The
president was purportedly uncomfortable with the degree of
power
that Hurtado Miller had and wanted to retain firmer
control of
the cabinet in general and economic policy in particular.
At the
same time, Fujimori combined the positions of prime
minister and
minister of foreign affairs. In a strong presidential
system such
as Peru's, the position of prime minister, without control
of
some other functional ministry, is a relatively impotent
one.
Data as of September 1992
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