(IPYS/IFEX) – On the evening of 3 October 2004, during a live broadcast of the “Cuarto Poder” political affairs television programme, President Alejandro Toledo made a telephone call to programme host Carlos Espá. Toledo called Espá a “coward” and accused him of carrying out “dishonourable journalism.” The incident took place immediately after a video showing […]
(IPYS/IFEX) – On the evening of 3 October 2004, during a live broadcast of the “Cuarto Poder” political affairs television programme, President Alejandro Toledo made a telephone call to programme host Carlos Espá. Toledo called Espá a “coward” and accused him of carrying out “dishonourable journalism.” The incident took place immediately after a video showing the president during a social gathering in the late 1990s was broadcast on the programme. The footage was taken when Toledo was still a presidential candidate and could prove that there were irregularities in the governing party’s legal registration with the National Elections Committee (Jurado Nacional de Elecciones). “Cuatro Poder” is broadcast on América Televisión, Channel 4.
The programme sought to link the meeting, in which Toledo appears together with his wife, Eliane Karp, his sister, Margarita Toledo, and other close associates, to the alleged falsification of signatures used to register the País Posible political party, which is now called Perú Posible and is headed by Toledo. The Attorney General’s Office is currently investigating the allegations.
Immediately after the broadcast of the video, the president called in to the programme and in an emphatic tone accused Espá of exercising journalism in an “ignoble” and “manipulative” manner. “The type of journalism you just carried out is dishonourable and I will not permit it. You are a coward!”, Toledo said, leaving Espá stunned.
After the incident, Espá insisted on the need to investigate the case in order to clarify whether or not Toledo had directly participated in the collection of the signatures in question. The journalist also recalled that government officials had said Toledo’s wife never took part in the registration process as she was out of the country at the time. The video would apparently disprove this statement.
“Cuarto Poder” director Rosana Cueva described Toledo’s reaction to the broadcast of the video as a “regrettable outburst” and maintained that the information presented on the programme “reveals the president’s active participation and monitoring of his political party’s signature collection process”. She characterised the social gathering shown in the video as a “compromising event” for the president.
