César Acuña

Acuña Peralta family.

César Acuña Peralta was born on August 11, 1952, in the Peruvian hamlet of Ayaque, Tacabamba District, Chota Province, Cajamarca Region. He is the third of twelve brothers. His parents were Héctor Acuña Cabrera and Clementina Peralta Alvarado, people dedicated to agricultural work. His parents had no formal education (only the father attended primary school). Acuña and his 11 siblings completed their primary and secondary studies at the Tacabamba National School for Boys and Girls.[9]

When he was 18 years old, he traveled to Trujillo and enrolled in the School of Engineering at the National University of Trujillo in 1972, graduating at the age of 23 with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering. To cover his college expenses, he had to sell cañazo (strong liquor) that he obtained from the then Casa Grande sugar plantation. As a student, he founded the Prep-College Engineering Academy in 1980, thus beginning his career as an entrepreneur in education. This academy was located on Carrión Avenue.[10]

On November 12, 1991, Law 25350 was enacted, which created César Vallejo University. The college would expand throughout the country with campuses in Chiclayo, Piura, Chimbote, Tarapoto, Lima, Huaraz and Moyobamba. In 1996 he founded the Club Deportivo Universidad César Vallejo, which represents Cesar Vallejo University in Peruvian professional football, and the regional television network UCV Satelital. In 2001 he established the Señor de Sipán University in Chiclayo, and three years later the Harvard College of Piura. Finally, in 2007, he founded the Autonomous University of Peru in the populous district of Villa El Salvador in Lima.[11]

During the 1990s, Acuña attained a master's degree in College Management at the University of Los Andes (Colombia), a master's degree in Education Administration at the University of Lima, a Ph.D. in Education at the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain), and Post-Ph.D. in Communication, Education and Culture at the Saint Thomas Aquinas University (Colombia).

Acuña first ran for a seat in the lower house of the Peruvian Congress at the 1990 general election with the Socialist Left Alliance from La Libertad constituency. Although not elected, he started working towards founding his own political party.

At the 2000 Peruvian general election, he was elected to Congress as an independent within the National Solidarity Party. Upon taking office, he quit the National Solidarity parliamentary caucus and former an independent bloc.[12] His term would be shortened to one-year following Alberto Fujimori's downfall and the convoking of new general elections for April 2001.

At 2001 general election, Acuña was invited by Lourdes Flores to run for reelection with the National Unity coalition. At the time, he was in the final stages of starting his own political party. He was ultimately elected representing La Libertad constituency.[13]

On December 8, 2001, in Trujillo, Acuña founded Alliance for Progress, his own political party. Following this event, he quit the National Unity parliamentary caucus and formed an independent bloc once again. Throughout his full term in Congress, he led numerous bills regarding education business regulations, and was a member of the investigative committee's on corruption in the Fujimori regime.

At the 2006 general election, Acuña invited fellow congressman Natale Amprimo to run for President of Peru with the Alliance for Progress nomination, and himself as his first running mate (which allowed him to run simultaneously for reelection to Congress). Although he attained the highest vote count in his constituency, the nationwide results were 2.3% of the popular vote, failing to pass the new electoral threshold. The presidential ticket itself attained 0.4% of the popular vote, placing tenth.

During the 2011 general election campaign, he was sanctioned five times for violating electoral neutrality in favor of his son and presidential candidate, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, in his position of Mayor of Trujilo.[30]

In September 2011, the Prosecutor's Office ordered an experts opinion to the accounts of the universities of César Acuña for alleged money laundering, in response to the complaint made by his own wife, Carmen Rosa Núnez Campos.[31]

In June 2012, the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE) fined Alliance for Progress with more than 9 million soles for having received contributions ten times greater than the allowed limit from César Vallejo University.

In May 2013, a video was released in which Acuña proposed to members of his party to "buy votes" to achieve his reelection as mayor of Trujillo, allegedly using public funds. Acuña admitted that he "bought votes" to achieve his reelection and that it does not seem like a bad thing to him, but denied that it was with public funds.[32][33][34][35] That same month, another audio revealed that Acuña used resources from the Municipality's Treasury to improve his image as mayor of Trujillo.[36][37]

The dean of the School of Engineering of the National University of Trujillo, Masahiro Ywanaga Angulo, questioned the veracity of the diploma obtained by Acuña in said college. Claiming that Acuña entered the UNT in 1973, and finished studying in 1986, Masahiro points out that Acuña obtained 48 credits in a cycle in 1977 when the normal is 22, which pointed out irregularities in the qualifications. In 1980, Acuña asked to showcase his bachelor's thesis when he still had to pass courses to graduate, and later he took 8 courses, some of which were for the first, third and fourth cycles, which included courses that needed to have been completed and approved by others. The case remains unresolved. Acuña himself has denied any irregularities in his college education.[38]

In January 2016, at the start of his presidential campaign, he was accused of committing plagiarism in his Ph.D. thesis dissertation at the Complutense University of Madrid. In June 2017, the university released a statement declaring that the dissertation would not be annulled after investigations concluded there was no plagiarism.[39] At the same time, he was accused of also committing plagiarism in his master's thesis at the University of Lima. Nine months later, the university verified that Acuña committed plagiarism in four modalities for his Master's thesis in Educational Administration: Literal copy without mentioning the source; mention of source and apparent paraphrase, but literal copy of the texts; mention of source and combination of paraphrase with literal copy; and taking ideas from another author without mentioning the source. Acuña publicly denied the allegations.[40]

• Alliance for Progress