Profile of Keiko Fujimori, Peru's Ninth President-Elect in the Last 10 Years

Keiko Fujimori has been announced as Peru’s new president-elect. The 51-year-old is the daughter of the late Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori and Susana Higuchi. Alberto Fujimori was the son of Japanese immigrants in Peru. Her father was known for ruling Peru with an iron fist from 1990 to 2000 and was praised for defeating Maoist rebels and taming runaway hyperinflation. Alberto Fujimori’s reputation was tarnished by a bribery scandal involving former intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos, which led him to flee to Japan, his parents’ homeland, in November 2000, where he lived for five years in self-imposed exile. Alberto Fujimori was later sentenced to 16 years in prison for human rights abuses, and Keiko Fujimori spent years under investigation for campaign finance charges that were dismissed last year. The Fujimori family remains a controversial dynasty in Peru. Keiko Fujimori was detained several times between 2018 and 2020 during the investigation, spending nearly a year and a half in prison. She is no stranger to Peruvian politics, having served as the country’s first lady in 1994 after her parents’ separation, which occurred after her mother criticised the corruption in her husband’s administration. At the age of 19, Keiko Fujimori accompanied her father to the first Summit of the Americas hosted by US President Bill Clinton. She also served as a Peruvian congresswoman in 2006 and became the first woman in Peru to reach the presidential runoff in 2011, though she lost that election. She ran again in 2016 and 2021, both of which also ended in defeat. Now, Peru’s National Office of Electoral Processes has released the final vote count showing Fujimori’s party, Popular Force, ahead of left-wing candidate Roberto Sánchez of the Together for Peru party. The margin of victory was just 49,641 votes out of approximately 18 million cast. Fujimori secured 50.13% of valid votes compared to Sánchez’s 49.86%. Fujimori will be inaugurated as president on 28 July and is expected to serve a five-year term alongside Luis Fernando Galarreta as first vice president and Miguel Ángel Torres Morales as second vice president. She takes over Peru after a prolonged period of political instability often linked to her father’s presidency, who was ousted in 2000 and later convicted on charges of corruption, embezzlement, and human rights violations, and whose legacy remains deeply divisive following a controversial pardon in 2023. Fujimori faces the difficult task of uniting polarised citizens with a fragmented Congress prone to ousting presidents. The country also confronts vast economic inequality between the capital, Lima, and rural areas, where major protests and clashes with security forces have killed more than 60 people following Castillo’s removal from office. These regions are also the support base for Sánchez and his Together for Peru party, which holds the second-largest bloc in Congress, while Fujimori’s party holds the most seats.