Fujimori's Peru presidency

Where things stand

Keiko Fujimori has taken office as president of Peru after a narrow election win, becoming the first woman elected to lead the country by popular vote and bringing Fujimorism back to the presidential palace after almost 30 years, according to El País. In her first remarks as head of state she promised an iron-fisted crackdown on crime, setting security as the defining commitment of her government from day one. The transfer of power was not uncontested: demonstrators took to the streets of Lima as the ceremony went ahead, a sign that the polarisation of the campaign has carried straight into her term. Regionally, she starts with visible backing, since the presidents of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile attended the inauguration. What remains open is whether her security agenda translates into concrete measures and how her government handles the street opposition that greeted its first hours.

Peru has just changed government after a presidential election decided by a narrow margin, won by Keiko Fujimori. Her victory returns to power Fujimorism, the political current that takes its name from her father, Alberto Fujimori, who governed Peru in the 1990s and whose movement has been out of the presidency for almost three decades, as El País notes. Fujimori is also the first woman to reach the Peruvian presidency through a popular vote rather than by succession. Her campaign centred on a hard line against crime, the promise she repeated on taking office. The narrow result and the protests in Lima on inauguration day indicate a country split over her mandate.