LIMA, Peru (Reuters) -- Peru's top election body Thursday halted a
                   former minister, who had alleged corruption in President Alberto
                   Fujimori's government, from running as an opposition congressional
                   candidate in April's elections.

                   The National Election Board ruling against Jorge Mufarech, a former outspoken
                   labor minister, came amid international criticism that the government manipulated
                   courts and election bodies to persecute opponents as Fujimori ran for a third term.

                   The board banned Mufarech, running for the "We Are Peru" party led by
                   presidential candidate Alberto Andrade, from bidding for Congress because
                   of a law stopping Peruvians with pending court cases from running for public
                   office.

                   Only two days after Mufarech announced his candidacy this month, a judge
                   opened a case against the former minister over allegations in the early 1990s
                   he undervalued an imported Jaguar car to avoid paying full customs duties.

                   "This is political vengeance," Natale Amprimo, Andrade's legal
                   representative, told Reuters after the election board, which rights groups say
                   is under Fujimori's control, published its ruling Thursday in the state gazette
                   El Peruano.

                   Mufarech, who Fujimori fired from the cabinet in 1999 after a few months in
                   the job amid a public spat in which the minister alleged nepotism and
                   corruption in the customs agency, denies the charges and says the case is
                   politically motivated.

                   The Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights said in a report
                   this month that the government manipulated the judiciary, calling Peru's
                   campaign process a "sham" designed to perpetuate Fujimori's autocratic
                   rule.

                   Fujimori, in power since 1990 and leading in polls after winning voter
                   support for his victory over Shining Path rebels and for reviving a moribund
                   economy, has denied his government influences the courts.

                    Copyright 2000 Reuters.