The recent elections in the Andean region do not show widespread support for the war on drugs. In Peru, Alberto Fujimori won an upset victory in the presiden-tial election on June 10. During the campaign, he opposed the use of herbi-cides and foreign military intervention, advocating alternative development and crop substitution. With regard to coca cultivation, Fujimoi-i declared that coca cultivators should not be crimi-nals, and his party, Cambio 90, stated,

With respect to the legal industrialization of this natural resource, the coca leaf, we advocate the development of pharmaceutical products that use the coca leaf and its derivatives as an ingredient. Further, the production and commercialization of tea made from coca leaves should be increased.

After his election, President-elect Fujimori said that the current effort to attack cocaine has failed and that the United States should redirect resources to development projects such as high-ways, railroads and schools.

In Colombia, where opposition candidates supported drug policy re-forms, the ruling Liberal Party candi-date Cesar Gaviria Trujillo won the presidential election on May 27 with 47.4 percent of the vote. Many voters stayed away from the polls as Gaviria received just 2.8 million votes; his prede-cessor, Virgilio Barco, received 4.2 million votes. This election had the highest voter abstention rate of all presidential elections in the past 20 years, with only 42 percent of the popu-lation voting. Interestingly, the lowest turnouts were in areas with the least terrorism, thus that should be dis-counted as a factor.