The formal declaration of Fujimori’s win on Friday brings one of Peru’s tightest leadership contests of all time to a close and ushers in the Andean nation’s ninth president in a decade.
“I proclaim Miss Keiko Sofia Fujimori Higuchi as president of the republic, and Mister Luis Fernando Galarreta Velarde as first vice president of the republic,” election chief Roberto Burneo stated at a ceremony in Lima.
“Peru needs to restore order in its streets, in its institutions and in the state,” Fujimori said from her party’s headquarters in the capital.
“Beyond the joy over this result, we are not going to wait another minute, because we are here to solve the country’s problems and start making decisions,” she added. “We know that citizens expect results.”
The daughter of the late, disgraced ex-leader Alberto Fujimori will succeed interim leader Jose Maria Balcazar on July 28 and govern until 2031.
The 51-year-old inherits the task of running a country hit by powerful organised crime gangs and chronic political instability.
Having unsuccessfully run for president three times, she won with 9,223,000, or 50.135 percent of the votes, over leftist rival Roberto Sanchez’s 9,173,000, or 49.865 percent, on her fourth try.
Her father Alberto, who ruled from 1990 to 2000, won praise for crushing Maoist rebels and taming hyperinflation. But he was later disgraced, exiled and jailed for corruption and crimes against humanity committed in the name of fighting what he considered terrorism.
Sanchez has alleged irregularities in the count, but election authorities have already thrown out his request to annul the results.
The defeated candidate is now challenging them at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Regional right-wing leaders have congratulated Fujimori on her victory, including Argentina’s Javier Milei, Chile’s Jose Antonio Kast and Colombia’s president-elect Abelardo de la Espriella .
“The Trump administration looks forward to deepening collaboration with the Fujimori administration to advance security cooperation and to strengthen bilateral cooperation on investment and trade in our region,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated in an early recognition of her victory on Tuesday.
Brazil’s leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva also congratulated Fujimori, posting on X: “Count on Brazil to build together a more prosperous, integrated, democratic and sovereign South America.” (AFP)
