Peru's president-elect Keiko Fujimori waves as she leaves the Foreign Affairs Ministry building for the Congress building after bilateral meetings with heads of state in Lima, on July 28, 2026, ahead of her inauguration. (Photo by Connie FRANCE / AFP)
Lima: Keiko Fujimori was sworn in as Peru's ninth president in a decade at an official ceremony in Lima on Tuesday, AFP journalists observed.
The conservative 51-year-old won June's runoff by fewer than 50,000 votes and will govern until 2031.
"I swear ... that I will faithfully carry out the duties of president of the republic, which the nation has entrusted to me for the 2026 to 2031 term," the daughter of ex-leader Alberto Fujimori stated before Congress.
Fujimori's hardline campaign tapped into Peru's worst security crisis in decades, fueled by the spread of both local and foreign criminal gangs that oversee contract killings and extortion.
She has proposed fighting crime by expelling undocumented people, setting up courts with anonymous judges and making prisoners work for their food.
Her father, who ruled in the 1990s, was eventually disgraced and jailed for corruption and crimes against humanity committed during what he considered a fight against terrorism.
"She is going to be a replica of her father," said 80-year-old retiree Cesar Fuentes, who fears that a crime crackdown will lead to abuses.
But housewife Nelly Vega believes Fujimori "is going to lead us to something better."
"We're in a country with a lot of terror," the 68-year-old said.
