Peru's Fujimori resigns effective Tuesday, leaving Peru to debate a transition government

In this story: Admired and despised Letter acknowledges 'errors' U.S. calls for orderly transition Praised for defeating guerrillas RELATED STORIES, SITES

From staff and wire reports

LIMA, Peru -- President Alberto Fujimori resigned Monday after a tumultuous 10-year reign, plunging Peruvians into uncertainty over who will replace the man who brought to bay leftist guerrillas and economic chaos but ran roughshod over their democracy.

In the scramble over who will serve as a transition president, Second Vice-President Ricardo Marquez -- a Fujimori loyalist -- said late Monday he would resign and not succeed Fujimori. That left the opposition a step closer to assuming leadership of the country.

"I'm doing it because I think my resignation will bring stability just at the right time," Marquez, who had been vice-president since 1995, told reporters at the presidential palace.

VIDEO CNN's Anand Naidoo reports on Fujimori's resignation Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)     RESOURCES Alberto Fujimori pictoral timeline: a decade in power   MESSAGE BOARD Peru in transition

It was an ignominious end for the iron-fisted Fujimori.

Earlier Monday, the son of Japanese immigrants sent Peru's Congress his resignation from a luxury hotel room in downtown Tokyo. His resignation came amid speculation he was seeking asylum in his parents' homeland -- all to escape the corruption scandal that led to his downfall.

Peruvian Prime Minister Federico Salas told CNN Sunday that Fujimori's resignation would take effect by Tuesday.

"What he told me is that he thinks his presence in the government is not helping this process of democracy in Peru, so he took that decision," Salas said.

Fujimori's resignation caught the country's leadership off guard and angered allies who complained he should have stepped down at home.

On Monday one Peruvian newspaper, La Republica, said in a headline: "Fujimori flees to Japan and resigns like a coward."

In Peru, foreign ministry sources said they had been told Fujimori's health has deteriorated since he arrived in Japan on Friday on what was to have been an overnight visit to seek loans from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation for Peru.

Fujimori's health will determine how long he stays in Japan, the sources said.

Admired and despised

Fujimori, 62 was a controversial figure at home and abroad. He won praise for restoring order to the South American nation and earned respect in Washington for taking an active role in the region's deepening drug war.

But his anti-democratic methods provoked fear and scorn among critics and political opponents.

He closed an opposition-controlled Congress, drafted a new constitution and took on special powers he said were needed to battle Marxist insurgents.

Last May, Fujimori won an unprecedented third five-year term in a vote marred by irregularities and boycotted by international observers. The United States and Canada protested the results.

Most Latin American nations accepted Fujimori's re-election. But they demanded that he restore freedom of expression, hold clean elections next time around, and rein in his intelligence chief, Vladimiro Montesinos.

Ultimately, Fujimori's intelligence chief proved his undoing, when he was caught in a videotape bribing an opposition congressman. Critics in the past had charged Montesinos with corruption and human rights abuses.

Moreover, the shadowy spymaster was recently linked to supplying arms to Colombian narco-guerrillas, just as the United States prepared to boost military aid to Colombia to fight the drug war there.

Alarm bells went off when arms sold by Jordan to Peru were found in the hands of the guerrillas.

The rifles had been sold to the Peruvian army, but were dropped in the Peruvian jungle by gun runners at the request of Montesinos, The New York Times reported earlier this month.

Letter acknowledges 'errors'

Seeing his popularity plummeting after the corruption scandal, Fujimori apparently saw resignation as the way out.

It came after the opposition wrested control of Congress last week -- for the first time since Fujimori's own 1992 "coup" -- in which he seized unprecedented powers.

In his resignation letter to the president of Peru's Congress, Valentin Paniagua, Fujimori staunchly defended his decade in power but acknowledged his "errors."

"I submit to you, Mr. President of Congress, my formal resignation as president of the republic," Fujimori wrote in his two-page letter.

Acknowledging that his support had crumbled, Fujimori wrote, "I am the first to acknowledge that there is a new political scenario in the nation."

In Japan, officials said Fujimori had not requested political asylum.

But Mary Ellen Countryman, a spokeswoman for the U.S. National Security Council, said Monday that Peruvian officials have informed the U.S. government that Fujimori will stay in Japan indefinitely.

Paniagua, a newly elected opposition member, said Congress would be called into session Tuesday to take up the resignation, but he did not specify what action might be taken.

U.S. calls for orderly transition

Peter Romero, the acting U.S. assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs, called for an orderly transition after traveling here with a high-level U.S. delegation Monday.

Asked about Fujimori's possible replacement, he said, "Our support is for the process and not for any particular person or party."

Speaking at a news conference, he pointed to the unresolved 2-week-old U.S. presidential election between Republican George Bush and Democrat Al Gore. "Democracy is a process that is always fraught with problems and disputes, which sometimes appear insurmountable, but each time they're solved, democracy comes out stronger than ever," Romero said.

Romero was joined by Arturo Valenzuela, director of Inter-American Affairs for President Clinton's National Security Council, and by U.S. Ambassador John Hamilton and others.

In addition to Fujimori's Cabinet, they met with Paniagua and Marquez, apparently before Marquez's resignation. Paniagua remained a potential interim leader.

Earlier Monday, opposition lawmakers had questioned Marquez's democratic credentials and said they would call for his resignation to pave the way for Paniagua to take office.

Fujimori's letter spoke of a "new correlation of forces." It was an apparent reference to the fact that opposition lawmakers won control of Congress last week.

The letter did not elaborate, but a motion had been placed before the 120-seat legislature to remove Fujimori as president on constitutional grounds of "moral incapacity."

Prior to his formal resignation letter, Fujimori had announced in a written statement Monday that he would step down within 48 hours.

One U.S. official speculated that Fujimori's resignation was motivated by concern that the opposition-led Congress might "go after him."

Praised for defeating guerrillas

Among Peruvians, Fujimori was initially popular for defeating the powerful Marxist Shining Path and Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement guerrillas -- who controlled much of Peru's countryside and shantytowns -- and ending annual inflation that topped 7,000 percent when he took office in 1990.

But his popular support was eroded by lingering poverty, weariness with his autocratic ways and his close ties to his Montesinos.

One of the defining moments of Fujimori's presidency came in 1997, when he personally directed the rescue of 74 hostages held by Tupac Amaru rebels in the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima. The siege ended with commandos storming the building, killing all 14 rebels.

Fujimori and Montesinos had controlled almost all aspects of Peruvian society -- from Congress to the courts to television stations -- and his resignation has set off a power struggle to fill the vacuum he leaves.

After release in September of the videotape, apparently showing Montesinos bribing an opposition congressman, Fujimori announced two months ago he would step down next July after new elections in April.

Under the constitution, the first vice president takes over when the president resigns. But First Vice President Francisco Tudela resigned after Montesinos returned to Peru on October 23, following a failed asylum bid in Panama. Congress, however, never accepted his resignation.

Paniagua, a political moderate, would be constitutionally next in line after the first and second vice presidents.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Embassy of Peru in the U.S.

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