Conservative politician Keiko Fujimori on Friday was declared the winner of the presidential runoff election in Peru, which was dominated by people’s concerns over surging crime.
Fujimori, 51, the daughter of a disgraced former president, was running for the presidency for the fourth time. She will be Peru’s ninth president in 10 years when she takes office later this month.
Fujimori’s victory, along with that of Abelardo de la Espriella in Colombia and José Antonio Kast in Chile, confirms a regional shift toward the conservative wing, a stark contrast from the panorama of a few decades ago when left-wing leaders such as Hugo Chávez in Venezuela or the current Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva emerged.
Keiko Fujimori is the daughter of the late Alberto Fujimori, the former president whose government in the 1990s defeated the Shining Path extremist rebel group but also took an authoritarian turn. He was convicted in 2009 of human rights abuses in the fight against the rebels, and later of corruption charges.
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