Javier Torres, anthropologist and human rights activist. Photograph by Rafael Uzcátegui. Used with permission. From 1990 until 2000, Peru was under the authoritarian right-wing rule of President Alberto Fujimori. About 2,000 kilometers away in Venezuela, leftist President Nicolas Maduro has held an ever-tightening grip on power in his country since 2013. Javier Torres sees many similarities between the two, even if they occupy different ends of the political spectrum. Torres is director of a non-governmental organization called Servicios Educativos Rurales (Rural Educative Services) and a political analyst for Poder magazine and the Lamula.pe website. In 2012, when the trial against Fujimori began for human rights violations, he was executive secretary of the National Commission of Human Rights, where he promoted a legal strategy and citizen mobilization to bring Fujimori to justice. The following is a re-edited version of an interview with Torres conducted by Rafael Uzcategui with support from Daniel Klie during the Summit of Human Rights Defenders in Caracas that took place in late 2017. It is published on Global Voices with his permission. Rafael Uzcategui (RU): What are the main similarities between the Nicolas Maduro and Alberto Fujimori governments? Javier Torres (JT): There are several. In order for a country to be democratic there must be separation of powers, a free press, and free elections. There are other elements, but these are fundamental. Both in Fujimori's Peru and in Maduro's Venezuela, no separation of powers exists. The emergency laws that are executed, as much as the changes or violations that these rulers make, form the scene of a dictatorship, there is a distinct similarity. The second has to do with the subject of freedom of expression, which is a factor one has to consider under certain conditions. Elections do not guarantee that a democracy exists if the electoral system does not comply with the minimum laws it must have to function – electoral calendars, for example. An electoral system must be standardized and not be subject to vagaries of the executive role, which is happening in Peru a little and is also what one sees taking place in Venezuela. It seems to me that what they have is a dictatorship like the one we suffered under. JT: Dictatorships not only learn but are sophisticated in their methodology. In the Peruvian case, due to having characteristics of a privatization goal, there was no resistance at the beginning. Fujimori had the Congress closed and then held an election where fraud allegations were raised. Then the Constitutional Court intervened the following year. Even as early as 1990 or 1991, what we have in Peru is the building of an action that will reaffirm that blow: The Fujimorist aim was a totally anti-political appeal, absolutely against the search for compromise. It was an approach based upon denouncing politics as useless, that democracy doesn't work so we must be pragmatic. That started to justify the act of privatization. There wasn't a big debate in Peruvian civil society about the dictatorship as it formed, which could be Venezuela's case too, but I think a lot has to do with how [Venezuela's] regime is viewed from outside. Other countries see it as a leftist government that has generated social platforms. That's where the problem arises, the ideological activity is generating a kind of resistance to call it a dictatorship. RU: There has been a debate in Venezuela about how conflict resolution should unfold: transition by collapse or transition by resolution. In Peru's case, how did the incumbent coalition break down? JT: In Peru's case, a transition came near the end of the regime because there was a collapse. [It is true that] as early as 2000 a dialogue table had already been in place [but it was because of allegations] of election fraud in the past. However, around the beginning of Fujimori's third term, most popular mobilizations were neutralized, mostly because of exhaustion. RU: According to what you've said before, another key moment in Fujimori's fall was the loss of the popular support he had had in his first years in power. JT: There was a moment in his electoral campaign, for the first time in that whole decade, where Fujimori began to be rejected by a few localities. No one would have dared to hold an opposition demonstration before. The important thing is that it wasn't pre-planned, everything was unfolding spontaneously. “Fujimorism” was wearing out. These kind of regimes refuse to leave though an electoral way. They are so steeped in corruption that they have to stay in power.