Fujimori poised for Peru presidency, but country remains on edge

Lopez, the owner of several small businesses, said it was not Keiko Fujimori’s market-friendly economic policies that ultimately drove her to support the candidate in the presidential runoff earlier this month, but a far more personal issue.

“She’ll address the crime and insecurity, which has most Peruvians worried,” said Lopez, 34. “You can’t live, much less open a business because of all this crime, these extortions. I’ve been a victim, so know what it’s like.”

Lopez said she was the victim of an extortion attempt last year, an experience that pushed her to leave her native Amazon region and start over in Lima.

For Lopez and millions of Peruvians, rising crime, corruption and a deep mistrust of public institutions were front of mind as they went to the polls on Peru’s knife-edge runoff on June 7.

With all ballots counted, Fujimori, backed by her conservative Popular Force party, finished ahead of Roberto Sanchez by 49,641 votes, according to the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE). She is now the virtual winner of Peru’s June 7 presidential runoff, pending formal proclamation by the National Elections Board (JNE).

Fujimori received 50.135%, or 9,223,396 votes, while Sanchez, of the leftist Together for Peru party, received 49.865%, or 9,173,755 votes.

Fujimori said after the ONPE count was completed that she would await the JNE proclamation with “humility, prudence and responsibility,” while acknowledging that Peru remains deeply divided. She said her immediate priorities would include restoring order and preparing for the El Nino weather phenomenon.

The JNE is expected to formally proclaim the result by July 3, with the winner to become Peru's tenth president in a decade. But the question on many minds now is whether Sanchez will recognize the results.

The June runoff was one of the tightest electoral contests in Peru’s recent history. For weeks, the margin hung in the balance as electoral authorities reviewed contested tally sheets before Fujimori’s lead settled at just under 50,000 votes as overseas ballots poured in.

But Sanchez, backed by his leftist Together for Peru party, is not conceding.

He has vowed not to recognize a Fujimori government, while his party has filed legal challenges, including a bid to invalidate thousands of ballots cast at hundreds of polling sites in the US, alleging irregularities in the processing and shipment of them from consulate polling sites back to Peru for counting. The challenges, as well as calls for national protests, now cast a shadow of uncertainty on an already turbulent body politic in Peru.

National electoral authorities and international observers have found no evidence of fraud during the second-round vote.

If formally proclaimed by the JNE, Fujimori will take the helm of a nation divided by political and geographical fault lines.

Contenders

Fujimori is the daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori, who governed from 1990 to 2000. A deeply polarizing figure among Peruvians, he is credited with stabilizing a hyperinflation-hit economy in the 1990s and crushing the Maoist insurgent group Shining Path, which Peru, the US, the EU and others designate as a terrorist organization. He was later jailed for crimes against humanity committed by his government during that period.

“Keiko,” as she is known across the country, has promised to revive her father’s law-and-order approach and free-market economic model, pledging to confront rising insecurity and violent organized crime; attract foreign investment to Peru’s gas, oil and mining sectors and restore stability to an executive branch battered by years of political turmoil and repeated impeachments.

Popular Force will hold 22 of the 60 seats in Peru’s reinstated Senate, making it the chamber’s largest bloc and giving it significant leverage in Congress. Crucially, that strength could help it block the kinds of impeachment efforts that have removed three Peruvian presidents over the past decade.

Her challenger forged a starkly different vision for the country. Sanchez, a congressman and trained psychologist, campaigned on redistributing wealth from the gas and mining sectors, raising the national minimum wage and rewriting the market-friendly 1993 Constitution.

Among his more polarizing campaign pledges was to free jailed former President Pedro Castillo, the populist leader removed from office after attempting to shutter Congress and rule by decree in 2021 to avoid impeachment.

For millions in the rural provinces, Sanchez, donning the same Andean cowboy hat worn by Castillo, represents new hope for political representation in the historically marginalized Andes and Amazon.

Unlike Castillo, whose administration was marked by inexperience, gridlock and corruption allegations, Sanchez has branded himself as a more capable, technically prepared and politically savvy successor of the former president's rural movement.

Economic concerns

For millions of others, his campaign promises have only fueled fears of continued political turmoil and economic instability.

In Lima’s historic seaside district of Barranco, restaurateur Patrick Haggard Caine backed Fujimori on Election Day, not out of enthusiasm for her candidacy, but because he viewed her as a less harmful choice for the country.

“(Peru) is a country with a lot of wealth, and it needs investment and jobs. The state doesn't create jobs. Businesses do,” said Haggard Caine. “We’ve seen what wealth redistribution looks like in other countries. It's deceptive to give people the idea they'll have more resources. How are they going to distribute it?”

It is a concern shared by millions of Peruvians, who see the economic turmoil in Venezuela and Bolivia as a warning of where Sanchez’s policies could take the country.

Despite a decade of deepening political instability, Peru’s economy remains one of the most stable in the region, maintaining a credible central bank, low inflation and a highly profitable mining sector.

Still, ordinary Peruvians told Anadolu they feel the financial strain in a country where seven in 10 work in the informal economy, lacking access to basic benefits like paid time off, health care, or retirement savings.

A sense of that frustration and political division was on display recently in Lima’s historic San Martin Plaza, where hundreds of Sanchez supporters gathered. Among them was 59-year-old Lima resident Ramon Ingosorio.

“(Sanchez) has shown his morals, and they’re impeccable. There’s a lot of fear-mongering in the media about Peru becoming the next Cuba or Venezuela, and that’s scaring the uninformed to vote for Keiko,” said Ingosorio. “She says she’ll govern like her father. Well, the era of her father’s presidency was one of the most corrupt in our history.”

The election marks Fujimori’s fourth bid for the presidency. In the wake of her 2021 defeat, she decried the results for weeks, alleging electoral fraud.

Fujimori, 51, was inducted into politics at the age of 19 when her father appointed her as his first lady after separating from her mother. She later went on to build her own career as the head of the country’s most powerful political faction.

But her time in politics has been marred by allegations of corruption. She spent more than a year in pretrial detention over dropped charges of campaign finance violations between 2018 and 2020.

Fujimori has said she will wait until she receives JNE credentials before naming transition teams or announcing Cabinet picks.

If formally proclaimed by the JNE, Fujimori is due to be sworn in July 28 for a five-year term in a country where no president has completed a full term since 2016. She will be replacing caretaker President Jose Balcazar, who took office after his predecessor was impeached for an influence-peddling scandal involving state contracts and alleged favors with Chinese businessmen.