Keiko Fujimori was sworn in as president of Peru on July 28, after a razor-thin election victory in a vote dominated by public fears over rising crime. She is the daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori, who ruled Peru in the 1990s and was convicted of corruption and crimes against humanity.
Speaking before Congress at her inauguration, Fujimori said: “I swear… to faithfully carry out the duties of president of the republic.” She becomes Peru’s ninth president in a decade, a period marked by political turmoil as a series of presidents were impeached, resigned or replaced before finishing their terms.
Fujimori’s Fuerza Popular party is now the largest bloc in Congress. Together with its main right-wing ally, it will hold half the seats in the newly created Senate, making impeachment more difficult. However, right-wing parties still lack a super-majority to pass her agenda.
Fujimori’s campaign focused on law and order as Peru faces its worst security crisis in decades, with extortion and contract killings fueled by the expansion of local and foreign criminal gangs. She pledged to fight crime with an “iron fist,” including building a super-maximum-security prison modeled on El Salvador’s Cecot facility, creating anonymous judges to hear criminal cases, deporting undocumented immigrants, and requiring prisoners to work for food.
Fujimori’s victory also marks the return of one of Peru’s most divisive political dynasties. Her father, Alberto Fujimori, is credited by supporters with defeating the Maoist Shining Path insurgency and taming hyperinflation through harsh neoliberal reforms. But he was later convicted of corruption and crimes against humanity for his campaign against armed groups, serving 16 years in prison.
Critics worry Fujimori will revive her father’s policies. Some accuse her Fuerza Popular party of contributing to years of political instability through its influence in Congress and fear that her tough-on-crime campaign could erode civil liberties. On the eve of her inauguration, relatives of victims of state violence gathered in Lima to protest the new government, demanding justice for abuses under her father’s administration.
Opposition groups also called on the new government to reverse recent laws they say have weakened efforts to fight organized crime, and to reopen investigations into the deaths of dozens of protesters during demonstrations in 2022 and 2023.
