Three-quarters of an hour had not yet gone by when I rose to my feet. He accompanied me to the front door and as we reached it I made a little joke by bidding him goodbye in the traditional Japanese way, with a bow and murmuring “Arigato gosai ma su.” But he held his hand out to me without so much as a smile.
I went home hunched down in Lucho’s station wagon, and once there, in my study, with all the “royal family” present — Patricia, Álvaro, Lucho and Roxana — we held a conclave during which I described to them my meeting with Fujimori and read them my letter withdrawing as a presidential candidate in a second round of voting. Outside on Malecón, the number of demonstrators had grown. There were now several hundred of them. They kept shouting for me to come outside and were chanting Libertad and Democratic Front slogans in chorus. With that din as background music, we had an argument — I believe it was the first time we had had such a heated one — since only Álvaro agreed with my decision to resign; Lucho and Patricia thought that the forces of the Front wouldn’t go along with collaborating with Fujimori and that the latter was already too deeply committed to Alan García and the APRA for my gesture to destroy their alliance. Moreover, it was their belief that we could win the second round.
We were in the midst of the argument when I heard that outside the house the demonstrators had begun to shout slogans in chorus that had a racist and nationalist ring to them—“Mario is a real Peruvian,” “We want a Peruvian,” in addition to others that were downright insulting — and in indignation I went out to talk to them from the terrace of my house, with the aid of a megaphone. It was inconceivable that those who supported me should discriminate between Peruvians on the basis of the color of their skin. Having so many races and cultures was our greatest source of wealth, the phenomenon that created ties between Peru and the four cardinal points of the globe. It was possible to be a Peruvian whether a person was white, Indian, Chinese, black, or Japanese. Agricultural engineer Fujimori was as Peruvian as I was. The cameramen from Channel 2 were there and managed to broadcast this part of my talk on the news program “Ninety Seconds.”
Early the following morning, Tuesday, April 10, I had the usual work session with Álvaro, during which we planned how we should disclose the news of my letter of resignation. We decided to do so through Jaime Bayly, who had never wavered in his support for me throughout the entire campaign and whose programs had a large audience. As soon as I had informed the political committee of Libertad, with which I had an appointment at 11 a.m, in Barranco, we would go with Bayly to Channel 4.
When, shortly before ten in the morning on that memorable day, the candidates for the first and second vice presidencies, Eduardo Orrego and Ernesto Alayza Grundy, arrived, there was already a horde of reporters on Malecón, struggling with my security forces, and the first of those groups which by noon had turned the grounds around my house into a rally were beginning to arrive. There was already a blazing sun and the morning was clear and bright, and very hot.
I gave Eduardo and Don Ernesto my reasons for not taking part in the second round and read them my letter. I had foreseen that both of them would try to dissuade me, as in fact they did. But I was disconcerted by the categorical statement made by Alayza Grundy, who, as a legal scholar, assured me that the step I was about to take was unconstitutional. A candidate could not refuse to compete in a second round. I told him that I had consulted Elías Laroza, who represented us before the National Election Board, and that he had assured me that there was no legal obstacle. In the present circumstances, my refusal to run a second time was the one thing that could keep Fujimori from becoming a prisoner of the APRA and ensure even a partial change of the policies that were destroying Peru. Wasn’t that a stronger reason than any other? Hadn’t a legal technicality been found to support Barrantes’s refusal to run against Alan García in a second round in 1985? Eduardo Orrego had been informed early that morning of my intention to give up my candidacy by a call from Fernando Belaunde, telephoning from Moscow, where he was attending a congress. The ex-president told Orrego that Alan García had phoned him from Lima, “all upset, since it had been learned that Vargas Llosa was thinking of giving up running as a candidate in a second round, which would invalidate the entire electoral process.” How had President García come by the news of my resignation? Through the one and only possible source: Fujimori. The latter, after his talk with me, had hastened to discuss our conversation with the president and ask for his advice. Wasn’t this the best proof that Fujimori was acting in collusion with Alan García? My resignation would be useless. On the contrary, if we went ahead and proved that Fujimori represented the continuation of the present government, we could reverse what appeared to be a desertion by so many independent voters who had turned to someone whom they believed, out of naïveté and ignorance, to be a candidate without ties to the APRA.
We were in the midst of this discussion when an uproar outside the front door drowned out our voices. Fujimori had unexpectedly turned up there, and our security force was trying to protect him from the avalanche of reporters who were questioning him as to his reasons for coming, and from supporters of mine who were jeering at him and catcalling. I showed him into the living room, as Don Ernesto and Eduardo went off to inform Popular Action and the Christian Popular Party of our talk.
Unlike the day before, when he struck me as being calm and serene, I noted that Fujimori was extremely tense, owing either to the hubbub at the front door or to what he had come to tell me. He began by thanking me for having expressed my strong disapproval of the racist slogans the night before (he had seen the telecast of my talk on Channel 2), and without hiding how upset he was, he added that constitutional problems might arise if I gave up my candidacy. This was unconstitutional and would invalidate the election process. I told him that it was my belief that this was not the case, but that, in any event, I would make certain that it would not bring about a crisis that would lead to a coup d’état. I saw him to the door, but I did not go out onto the street with him.
At the time the inside of my house was full to overflowing, as were the grounds outside. Every last member of the political committee of Libertad had arrived — the one time, it seems to me, that not one of them failed to show up — along with several of my closest advisers such as Raúl Salazar, and Jaime Bayly having been alerted by Álvaro. Patricia was holding a meeting in the patio with a fair number of the leaders of Acción Solidaria. We found room as best we could for some thirty people in the living room on the ground floor, and despite the heat, we closed the windows and drew the curtains so that the reporters and supporters gathered in the street wouldn’t hear us.
I explained the reasons why a second round impressed me as useless and dangerous, and given the outcome on Sunday, the advantage if the forces of the Front reached some sort of agreement with Fujimori. Keeping Alan García’s policy from continuing any longer was now the top priority. The Peruvian people had refused to give us the mandate that we had sought from them and there was no longer any possibility of carrying out our reforms — not even in the hypothetical case of winning in the second round, since we would have a majority against us in Congress — and therefore we should spare the country another campaign the result of which we already knew, since it was obvious that the APRA and the United Left would make common cause with my adversary. I then read them my letter.