Political Career
In 1980, after the election which named Fernando Belaúnde Terry as president, Kuczynski was invited to return to Peru to serve as Minister of Energy and Mines. In this position he sponsored law 23231 which, through tax exemptions and other incentives, promoted oil and gas exploration and exploitation after a period of relative neglect. This controversial measure has been subject to repeated change and reinstatement. Kuczynski also decentralized new investment in electricity generation.
During the 1990s, Kuczynski was mainly involved in the private-equity fund-management business in the United States. He made small personal donations to the presidential campaigns of George H.W. Bush and of George W. Bush and to the state-senatorship campaign of his wife's cousins in Wisconsin.
In 2000, Alejandro Toledo Manrique, then professor at the ESAN university in Lima, asked Kuczynski to advise him on his campaign for president. Kuczynski returned to work in Peru, and after Toledo's successful campaign, Kuczynski was appointed as his Minister of Economy and Finance from July 2001 to July 2002, and again from February 2004 to August 2005. In August 2005 he was appointed Prime Minister, a position he held until Toledo's presidential term expired in 2006.
It has been alleged, notably in 2007 by the commentator Manuel Dammert Ego Aguirre, that while he held public office Kuczynski was involved in facilitating the activities, in various projects in Peru, of a financial entity known as First Capital Partners, in particular in relation to the Olmos diversion project, the Jorge Chávez International Airport, the Transportadora de Gas, and the Conrisa consortium. It is true that for a few days former partners of Kuczynski in LAEF (above) had inappropriately and incorrectly listed Kuczynski as a founding partner of First Capital. However this error was corrected within days; and in due course Kuczynski sued Dammert for defamation and falsification of documents. Kuczynski's suit was upheld at first and second instance, but on appeal to Peru's Supreme Court Dammert's right to opine on matters of public interest was upheld, without ruling on the merits of Dammert's claims, which have been discussed extensively by Kuczynski.
After working with the Toledo administration, he founded Agua Limpia, a Peruvian non-governmental organization that provides drinking water systems to communities in Peru. Agua Limpia is supported by the Inter-American Development Bank, Scotia Bank of Canada and others.
On December 1, 2010, Kuczynski announced that he was a candidate for president of Peru in the upcoming elections. Kuczynski ran for president of Peru in the general election, though he did not pass into the run-off as head of the Alianza por el Gran Cambio (Alliance for the Great Change), formed by the Christian People's Party, the Alliance for Progress, the Humanist Party and the National Restoration.
Read more about this topic: Pedro Pablo Kuczynski
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