The Return of Fujimorismo in Peru, by Manuel Manrique Castro

The Return of Fujimorismo
Between memories of the past and the uncertainties of the future
Manuel Manrique Castro
29 July 2026
Every year, Peru’s Independence Day celebrations are accompanied by a spontaneous sense of joy, even when there is not much to celebrate. Flags displayed outside homes, decorated public squares, and the red-and-white ribbon rosettes worn on people’s chests all signal that it is time to commemorate the birth of the Peruvian nation. Every five years, this date also coincides with the inauguration of a new president. This July 28 will be a day when memories come flooding back for Peruvians, and the passage of time will crystallize into an event that seems almost fictional. Keiko Fujimori sought the presidency in four consecutive elections before finally succeeding. She defeated her opponent, Roberto Sánchez, by just 49,641 votes in a country of more than 34 million people.

Keiko’s life has been shaped by politics. She was just 15 years old when her father became President of Peru on July 28, 1990. Now, 36 years later, after waiting more than two decades, she will become Peru’s first woman president elected by direct popular vote.

Unlike her father, Keiko has had decades to prepare for the presidency, and she has done so through active involvement in Peruvian politics. She founded Fuerza Popular (Popular Force) to defend her father’s political legacy and, from that platform, led a congressional caucus that became one of the principal actors in Peru’s ongoing political instability.

At the same time, the president-elect faced criminal investigations brought by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, supported by extensive documentary evidence, on charges of money laundering, criminal conspiracy, and obstruction of justice. Although the case never went to trial, it was ultimately dismissed by the Judiciary. Another former president facing similar charges, Ollanta Humala—who defeated Keiko in the 2011 presidential election—began serving a 15-year prison sentence in April 2025.

When she was 19, her father appointed her First Lady, replacing her mother, Susana Higuchi. She served in that role until Alberto Fujimori stunned the country by resigning from the presidency via fax from Tokyo at the beginning of his third term. That period was also marked by her close relationship with Vladimiro Montesinos, the powerful adviser to the Fujimori regime.

Having already been drawn into the world of politics, Keiko launched her own public career and was elected to Congress for the 2006–2011 term. During those years, she introduced few legislative initiatives while frequently missing congressional sessions. In the years that followed, she faced legal proceedings, led her congressional caucus, and repeatedly sought to win the presidency.

With that history behind her, Keiko has finally reached the presidency. The question is no longer how she came to power, but what she will do with it. Her coalition controls 30 percent of the seats in the bicameral Congress and has potential allies that should provide the legislative support needed to govern. She inherits a country with macroeconomic stability, but her greatest challenges lie in improving the economic well-being of Peruvian families and addressing the country’s complex social and political realities. Among the most pressing are the country’s severe public security crisis and the damage already being caused by the emerging Super El Niño phenomenon.

Keiko and her party bear a significant share of the responsibility for the “disastrous” and “bleak” condition in which she says she has found the Peruvian state. Since the fall of Pedro Castillo, Fuerza Popular has been one of the principal pillars supporting Congress, which has effectively shaped the country’s political direction over the past four years.

Although Keiko has said that she will “govern like her father,” the country she now inherits is fundamentally different, and she cannot simply repeat the past. Alberto Fujimori took office amid economic collapse and confronted the Shining Path insurgency during its deadliest period. Keiko, by contrast, inherits a weakened rule of law—one she herself helped erode—and a society very different from that of the 1990s.

Her promise to build “a Peru with order,” focused on restoring public security, reviving the economy through private investment, and reforming the state apparatus, should be fulfilled without undermining human rights or weakening democratic institutions. She could also honor her commitments to Indigenous communities in the southern Andes and the Amazon, many of whom did not vote for her.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Peru’s poverty rate has increased by 6 percentage points, and 70.2 percent of the economically active population works in the informal sector. It is this more unequal and less secure Peru that will judge Keiko Fujimori—not by her father’s legacy, but by the results of her own administration.

The international alliances Fujimori seeks to cultivate clearly reveal her ideological orientation and foreshadow the direction of her domestic policies. Three examples illustrate this: she has announced plans to build four prisons, including a maximum-security facility modeled on Nayib Bukele’s approach; she intends to promote a regional alliance with Javier Milei; and she plans to bring Peru into the Shield of the Americas, a regional initiative backed by the United States.

Keiko’s greatest challenge is no longer winning an election. If she truly seeks national reconciliation, she will have to demonstrate that she can build a stable democracy free from corruption and authoritarianism—one capable of improving people’s living conditions while safeguarding their human rights. Internationally, she will also be expected to uphold multilateralism, defend peace, and speak out against interventionism and genocide.

Keiko could begin by settling an unfinished debt left by her father, who refused to answer the questionnaire delivered to him in Tokyo by Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The Commission’s report, now approaching its 23rd anniversary, remains a landmark historical document. It not only shed light on the atrocities committed by the Shining Path, the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), and state security forces, but also serves as an essential instrument for national reconciliation, particularly in the regions most deeply affected by the conflict (www.cverdad.org.pe/ifinal/). Symbolic gestures matter, but what matters far more are concrete actions that improve people’s lives and help heal the wounds of a nation that has been deeply divided for decades. (English translation edited by Cynthia Selde)