CNN
January 4, 2000

Peru's Fujimori could face challenge from former First Lady

                  LIMA, Peru (AP) -- The former wife of President Alberto Fujimori is being
                  wooed to join an opposition platform that plans to challenge her ex-husband
                  in next April's general elections.

                  Former First Lady Susana Higuchi hopes to run as a presidential or
                  vice-presidential candidate for the Independent Moralizing Front, her
                  attorney, Alberto Bautista, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

                  A final decision on whether she will head a ticket, or join the party's
                  vice-presidential or Congressional slates, will be announced on Thursday, he
                  added.

                  "We have had meetings and continue talks with her to see whether she will
                  participate with us in the upcoming elections," said Ernesto Gamarra, a
                  legislator with the party, which had adopted an anti-corruption, pro-human
                  rights platform.

                  The first couple's marital problems spilled out of the presidential palace into
                  the public eye in mid-1994 after Fujimori's supporters in Congress approved
                  a law preventing his wife from running for president or Congress in the 1995
                  elections.

                  Fujimori filed for divorce after locking Higuchi out of the palace when she
                  accused her husband of tolerating widespread corruption in his government
                  and of ignoring the needs of Peru's poor. The divorce came through in 1996.

                  Fujimori, who is coasting ahead of rival candidates in opinion polls,
                  announced last week that would run for an unprecedented third five-year
                  term.

                  Whether his ex-wife's candidacy could pose a serious challenge is unknown.
                  But political analyst Fernando Tuesta Soldevilla said, at the very least, having
                  Higuchi on an opposing ticket would be a thorn in Fujimori's side because of
                  her intimate knowledge of the president.