LIMA, Peru (AP) -- The military mastermind behind a failed 1992 coup
                  attempt against President Alberto Fujimori has announced his presidential
                  candidacy.

                  Retired Gen. Jaime Salinas, who served nearly three years of an eight-year
                  prison sentence for plotting to overthrow Fujimori said Wednesday he
                  would run in the April 2000 elections. Salinas said he offers "the democratic
                  alternative that Peru needs."

                  Fujimori has not announced whether he will run for a third consecutive term,
                  but most expect he will.

                  Fujimori's majority-controlled Congress passed a controversial law in 1996
                  that circumvented a constitutional ban on his running for another term, and
                  later ousted three Constitutional Tribunal judges who tried to overturn the
                  legislation.

                  Salinas led an aborted coup attempt on Nov. 13, 1992, seven months after
                  Fujimori suspended the constitution and sent tanks to surround Congress
                  and the Supreme Court.

                  Twenty-five officers participated in the plan to overthrow Fujimori and
                  reopen the opposition-controlled Congress.

                  Less than two weeks after the failed plan, a new Congress, dominated by
                  Fujimori's supporters, was elected.

                  In recent opinion polls, Fujimori has started to pull ahead of his main election
                  rivals, Luis Castaneda, the former head of Peru's social security system, and
                  Lima's popular Mayor Alberto Andrade.