Alberto Fujimori in Congress passed a law of "authentic interpretation" which effectively allowed him to run for another term in 2000. A 1998 effort to repeal this law by referendum failed. In late 1999, Fujimori announced that he would run for a third term. Peruvian electoral bodies, which were politically sympathetic to Fujimori, accepted his argument that the two-term restriction did not apply to him, as it was enacted while he was already in office. Exit polls showed Fujimori fell short of the 50% required to avoid an electoral runoff, but the first official results showed him with 49.6% of the vote,
Alberto Fujimori the money to Montesinos but claimed that he had later paid back the money to the state. On 20 July, the court found him guilty of embezzlement and sentenced him to a further seven and a half years in prison. A fourth trial took place in September 2009 in Lima. Fujimori was accused of using Montesinos to bribe and tap the phones of journalists, businessmen and opposition politicians – evidence of which led to the collapse of his government in 2000. Fujimori admitted the charges but claimed that the charges were made to damage his daughter's presidential election campaign. The