Lima became this Tuesday the capital of the Americas, the epicenter of political news by virtue of the inauguration of Keiko Fujimori, finally president, the first woman in the history of Peru to sit in the Pizarro Chair after winning at the polls. The leader of Fuerza Popular (FP), a right-wing populist, does so 36 years after her father, Alberto Fujimori, came to power after defeating the writer Mario Vargas Llosa at the polls.
In her case, as had already happened with the Brazilian Lula da Silva, the fourth time was the charm by just 49,641 votes, a similar handful of ballots that kept her from the presidency in 2011, 2016, and 2021.
“I have come to offer method, discipline, work, and a clear path. From this moment, an irreversible timer starts: exactly 1,826 days of governance await us,” Fujimori made very clear in her first speech to the country, in which she gave a diagnosis of the State she inherits, in a “catastrophic situation,” “weakened by corruption.”
Keiko’s first words, at 51 years old, were not heard by the congressmen of two leftist groups, Juntos por el Perú and Ahora Nación, who noisily abandoned their seats to support the strategy of the defeated candidate, Roberto Sánchez, determined to deny the president in an adaptation of what Andrés Manuel López Obrador did after his defeat against Felipe Calderón.
Other parliamentarians decided to turn their backs, as if they were players of the Argentine national team during the Spanish celebration for the World Cup. “I am capable of meeting with any devil,” however, said the other Sánchez in a token protest before the festivities began, which also coincide with the 205th anniversary of the independence of the Andean country.
Despite all this, the president made a call both to the opposition and to the regional governors to reach a great political agreement, a nod to reconciliation with which she concluded her speech: “There are not two different Perus, there is only one Peru, vibrant, multicultural, strong, and millenary that is ready to stand up. I assume command with the firmness needed to govern, but also with the sensitivity necessary to listen and heal the wounds of our people.”
International support
Those who were present, in broad international support, were King Felipe VI and eight leaders from the Americas, including three of its five neighbors. The Chilean José Antonio Kast, the Bolivian Rodrigo Paz, and the Ecuadorian Daniel Noboa participated in the swearing-in after talking with the new president. Despite their different political positions, the four are part of, or will be as in the Peruvian case, the Shield of Nations, the alliance led by Donald Trump from Washington.
The Argentine Javier Milei, the Paraguayan Santiago Peña, and the Uruguayan Yamandú Orsi, the only leftist among the guests, also came to Lima, along with Central Americans Javier Mulino (Panama) and Nasry Asfura (Honduras). Several of them were the ones who applauded the new president the most after the challenge from the leftist opposition.
If anyone knows protocol, it is Keiko, who at just 19 years old became first lady after the controversial divorce of her parents. She stayed with the dictator until he was expelled from power 26 years ago. But such a long trajectory did not prevent the president from getting straight to the point in her speech to the nation, announcing exceptional measures to fight insecurity and the climatic phenomenon of El Niño, which keeps the countries of the region on alert.
“During states of emergency, the Armed Forces will temporarily assume leadership of security operations and internal control, in close coordination with the National Police,” the president announced the announcement that a country besieged by violence and extortion was expecting.
Fujimori even recalled the tragedy that occurred in La Victoria last week, when 10 members of a family, five of them minors, died in what the police think was a fire caused by extortionists.
“I want to reaffirm our firm commitment to the absolute respect for the independence of powers and individual freedoms, particularly freedom of expression and the press,” promised the president, in another message for those who fear a reedition of the abuses committed by the military and police forces during the fight against the terrorist group Shining Path during her father’s mandate.
“Not one day more”, Keiko assured she will remain in power, also in clear comparison with the self-coup that kept her father in the presidency. The same one Pedro Castillo unsuccessfully attempted in December 2022. It will be precisely the pardon of the former president another of the issues Fujimori will have to resolve in her first presidential days.