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Peru's Fujimori Hammered In Polls After TV Takeover
By Andrew Cawthorne


     LIMA, Sept 22 (Reuter) - President Alberto Fujimori's
popularity has plummeted after his government took over a
television station that broadcast critical reports on Peru's
security forces, opinion polls showed on Monday.
     Two new surveys showed Fujimori's approval rating sliding 13
and 15 percentage points, mainly on the government's move against
Lima television channel Frecuencia Latina -- in the hands of
pro-government minority shareholders since Friday.
     Pollster Datum Internacional showed Fujimori's approval
rating at 30 percent, while a University of Lima survey gave him
32 percent, both down from around 45 percent in August.
     The University of Lima poll, which did not give a sample
number, said only 19.8 percent of people would vote for Fujimori
if an election were held tomorrow, compared to 40 percent for
the popular Lima mayor Alberto Andrade.
     A third survey by pollster Apoyo said nearly seven in every
10 Peruvians believe phone-tapping is a "habitual" practice of the
government against politicians, businessmen, and journalists.
     Frecuencia Latina's report on phone-tapping, allegedly by
state security agents, was the prelude to the government's first
lunge against the channel. Hours after the report aired on July
13, the channel's owner, Israeli-born businessman Baruch Ivcher,
was stripped of his Peruvian citizenship.
     The government said it revoked Ivcher's nationality because
it discovered administrative "irregularities" he committed when he
applied for citizenship in 1984.
     Under Peruvian law, foreigners cannot own local media, which
was why courts authorized the channel's minority shareholders,
Samuel and Mendel Winter, to take control Friday pending
appeals from Ivcher.
     Although officials say the case is a purely judicial matter
between independent businessmen, the takeover was widely perceived
in Peru and abroad as a government-inspired effort to silence the
channel's allegations of abuses by Fujimori's security services. 
     Those accusations, which also include claims of corruption
and torture, had helped dent Fujimori's traditionally high
popularity ratings in recent months.
     The Apoyo poll of 512 Peruvians and the Datum survey of 209
both put Andrade ahead of Fujimori as election favorite, by 20 and
six percentage points respectively. All the polls had a margin of
error of between three and five points.
     Fujimori has won two general elections, and it is unclear if
he will stand for the next presidential vote in 2000.
     Responding to a wave of criticism that has cast them as
government lap dogs, the Winter brothers published a statement in
local media Monday insisting on their independence.
     The new administration of Frecuencia Latina "will not answer
to the interests of its share participation in the company, but
will take into account the interest of the whole society", the
statement said.
     Local media have almost unanimously condemned the Frecuencia
Latina takeover. The U.S. State Department expressed its "concern
at the potential corrosive effect this action will have on freedom
of expression in Peru", according to an embassy statement.

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