Eliane Karp and Alejandro Toledo, in a file photo. Europa Press/Contact/El Comercio (Europa Press/Contact/El Comerci)
They met 48 years ago on the Stanford University campus in California. He, a Peruvian who came to the United States on a scholarship to study business and education. She, seven years her junior, a Belgian of Jewish descent, is interested in anthropology and discovering life on the other side of the pond. Two adventurers who, without following a clear political doctrine, created the illusion of the Peruvian people in the early 2000s by exploiting their interracial love story in a context where the country was devastated by the corruption of Fujimorism. In the collective imagination, Alejandro Toledo symbolized the successful Cholo who had conquered the United States and, moreover, the heart of a Gringa, while Eliane Karp positioned herself as an enlightened woman who spoke Quechua, the language of the USA, Incas, among many other languages. .
They married in 1979, four years after they began dating, had their only daughter in 1982, and separated in the late 1980s amid allegations of leaving home. Their divorce was made official in 1992 and there seemed to be no sign of a reconciliation. But according to legend, the reunion of Toledo and Karp happened as a result of a tragic incident: the occupation of the Japanese embassy in 1996 by the subversive group MRTA (Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement). Initially, there were 800 hostages, including Toledo, who escaped unharmed. They returned to live together, they formed a solid society that ruled Peru between 2001 and 2006, and they stayed united despite corruption scandals and notorious rumors of infidelity.
Today, Alejandro Toledo is being held in Barbadillo Prison in Lima after being extradited from the United States on April 23 following a lengthy court case. Toledo is accused of receiving $35 million in bribes from Brazilian construction company Odebrecht in return for favoring the company with major project concessions during his tenure, known as the Interoceánica case. Karp was by his side the whole time until he turned himself in to the American courts after exhausting all his legal tricks. However, she and her husband were also involved in an incident closely related to this scandal: she had disguised these bribes on behalf of her mother, Eva Fernenburg, through an offshore firm called Ecoteva Consulting Group. For this reason, Karp is accused of the alleged crime of money laundering and faces 18 months preventive detention, a request for 16 years and eight months imprisonment and an extradition request that has never been carried out. With no obstacles or restrictions to leaving the country, the former first lady in California packed her bags and flew to Tel Aviv, where she arrived last Wednesday. A predictable maneuver for political analysts as Peru has no extradition treaty with Israel and this creates a wall in its accountability.
During her stay at the palace, Eliane Karp gained notoriety for a character resembling the fumes of a boiling cauldron, for her frontal defense of the Toledo government, and for introducing anthological phrases etched in people’s memories. “Listen to me, little Limas, who are so afraid of humans: my cholo is healthy and holy,” he said. He labeled opponents “traditional partisans,” called some congressmen “crazy dogs,” and labeled former President Alan García, their biggest political rival, as an “evil and murderous belly.” As journalist Fernando Vivas put it: “It went from an electoral advantage to a marketing poison.” Karp was neither a co-government nor a nuisance to the ministers, as Nadine Heredia later did [con Ollanta Humala, presidente del Perú entre el 2011 y el 2016]but she painted the image of a strict first lady who accused opponents and the media of discriminating against and belittling her husband.
One of the major crises experienced by the presidential couple during the election campaign was when the press revealed that Alejandro Toledo had an unrecognized daughter named Zaraí. His mother, Lucrecia Orozco, a woman from the north, called on various television stations for the then head of state to take a DNA test. Although she portrayed herself as a liberal woman, Karp reacted angrily and condemned Orozco. “If this poor lady doesn’t know who she’s sleeping with, that’s her problem,” he said at the time. In October 2002, after pressure from the media and the judiciary, Toledo recognized his paternity. “Let me make it clear to my opponents: they will think they have won; I tell them they are wrong, I’m the winner, I won an intelligent and beautiful daughter. No one loses here, Zaraí and I won,” said the leader of the defunct Perú Posible party.
Eliane Karp, who used to dress in Andean looms and necklaces, also pursued a social agenda during her tenure: she was Honorary President of the National Commission of Andean, Amazonian and Afro-Peruvian Peoples (Conapa) and, in addition, she founded the NGO Fundación Pacha for Change with the aim of reducing poverty. His efforts to return 350 indigenous artifacts found in Machu Picchu in 1915 that had been in the hands of Yale University for almost a hundred years are remembered.
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For political opponents, Alejandro Toledo and Eliane Karp is more than a relationship: they have established a partnership. Karp himself denies this in an interview published by La República newspaper: “Seeing a cholo who is a good cholo like Alejandro and a gringa like me working with a horizontal relationship is what they couldn’t bear. ‘ They didn’t support that it existed and that it withstood all the blows of politics. They tried to separate us. As he notes, their relationship aroused the envy of his predecessors to the throne, Alan García and Alberto Fujimori, and his adviser Vladimiro Montesinos: “Because of their incompetence, they had to maintain stable and deep relationships with women.”
A photo of Eliane Karp in Israel, who at 69 appears to be her final destination, has not yet been leaked. The truth is, however, that the State Department has announced that it will shortly submit the preliminary request for extradition custody. As prosecutors have not dealt with Israel, they will support their request using United Nations anti-corruption conventions and the principle of reciprocity, as Peru extradited an Israeli citizen accused of corruption in 2013. Failing that, Eliane Karp would have escaped Peruvian justice while Toledo, aged 77, awaits a long trial to prove his innocence. When Judge Thomas Hixson confirmed the former President’s extradition, they both knew how this story would end. Only the law could separate them again. This time maybe forever.
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