Keiko Fujimori sworn in as Peru’s ninth president in a decade

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - Peru’s President Keiko Fujimori walks toward the Government Palace after leaving Congress following her inauguration ceremony in Lima on July 28, 2026. Fujimori took office on July 28, 2026, vowing to tackle the wave of crime sweeping the Andean nation. — AFP pic

LIMA, July 29 — Peru’s conservative President Keiko Fujimori took office on Tuesday, vowing to tackle the wave of crime sweeping the Andean nation.

On her fourth presidential bid, Fujimori won June’s runoff by fewer than 50,000 votes.

Addressing Congress, the newly inaugurated leader announced plans to deploy the military to areas where crime, drug trafficking and illegal mining are rife.

“During states of emergency, the armed forces will temporarily take the lead in security operations” until they can “return these territories to the citizens,” she said.

A group of leftist lawmakers left the room in protest at Fujimori’s inauguration, which marks Peru’s ninth presidency in a decade.

Latin American leaders including Argentina’s Javier Milei, Chile’s Jose Antonio Kast, Bolivia’s Rodrigo Paz, Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa and Uruguay’s Yamandu Orsi attended the ceremony.

The 51-year-old ran a campaign shadowed by the divisive legacy of her father, who ruled Peru in the 1990s.

Alberto Fujimori was jailed for corruption and crimes against humanity committed during what he considered a fight against terrorism.

His daughter’s hardline messaging taps into Peru’s worst security crisis in decades, fuelled by the spread of both local and foreign criminal gangs that oversee contract killings and extortion.

She has proposed fighting crime by expelling undocumented people, setting up courts with anonymous judges and making prisoners work for their food.

“She is going to be a replica of her father,” said 80-year-old retiree Cesar Fuentes, who fears that a crime crackdown will lead to abuses.

But housewife Nelly Vega believes Fujimori “is going to lead us to something better.”

“We’re in a country with a lot of terror,” the 68-year-old said.

The new president has also vowed to tackle the El Nino climate phenomenon, which meteorologists predict will be the most intense and devastating since 1998.

‘Fighting for justice’ 

Right-wing parties in Peru’s Congress still fall short of the majority required to push through the new president’s initiatives.

But Fujimori’s Fuerza Popular party, the largest one in the legislature, still carries a lot of weight.

“It is a party with deep popular roots that has had a dynamic presence in Peruvian politics, even when it was losing elections, because of its uninterrupted presence in Congress,” said Jeffrey Radzinsky, director of the political consultancy GFP.

Fujimori will govern until 2031 following a decade of political chaos that has burned through eight Peruvian leaders, many of whom were removed from office or forced to resign by a Congress under Fujimori’s influence.

“There are high expectations,” independent worker Marci Angeles, 31, told AFP.

“But given how she has behaved as an opposition leader” in recent years, Angeles said, “the outlook is not good.”

Fujimori has called for reconciliation between political camps, but the appeal has not gone down well with the families of victims of state violence.

On Monday, over 100 people held a vigil in the capital, vowing to reject the incoming government and demanding justice for crimes committed under the last Fujimori administration.

“We expect nothing good from her,” said Marly Anzualdo, who is still searching for the body of her disappeared brother Kenneth.

“For so many years we have been fighting for justice to be done, and we know how they operate,” she told AFP. — AFP