government. Some time later he became a member of AP, and kept on a civil protest against Velasco and his 1975 successor, General Francisco Morales-Bermúdez. In the elections of 18 May 1980, he was re-elected to Congress, and his party boss, Belaúnde, won his second presidency. In July 1982, after being part of the Constitutional Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, he became President of the Chamber of Deputies. On 10 May 1985, he became Minister of Education. In October of that year he resigned to return to his parliamentary activities. He was given the Orden del Sol in the Gran Cruz grade. The defeat of AP in the 14 April 1985 elections and arrival to power of Alan García's APRA sent Paniagua to the opposition. Over the following five years he remained a strong foe of the government and worked as a prestigious lawyer in academic and political circles, as well as a professor of constitutional law at the universities of San Marcos, Femenina del Sagrado Corazón and Pontificia Católica. In the national elections of 1990, together with most of Acción Popular, Paniagua supported the candidacy of Mario Vargas Llosa for president. When Alberto Fujimori was elected President, Paniagua was part of the opposition, but became a strong opponent after Fujimori's auto-coup in April 1992. Presidency (2000–2001) Fujimori was reelected once again in the controversial national elections of 2000. Paniagua was a prominent member of the opposition. On 14 September the nation was rocked by evidence that Fujimori's security chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, had bribed an opposition congressman to switch to Fujimori's party, Perú 2000. Fujimori's support evaporated at this point, and he was forced to announce he would step down after new presidential elections in 2001. An OAS mission was sent to deal with the political crisis. Fujimori's allies lost control of Congress after numerous defections to the opposition. On 15 November 2000, a majority of the Congress dismissed the acting President of the Peruvian Congress, a Fujimori supporter. After an internal discussion among the political forces, Paniagua was elected the new President of the Peruvian Congress. He was elected because all parties considered him to have a fair but strong character, needed in such times of crisis. A few days later, Fujimori submitted his resignation by fax. However, Congress voted 62-9 to reject Fujimori's resignation and remove him from office on grounds that he was "permanently morally unfit."