Sawt Falasteen - President-elect Fujimori hails 'new chapter' for Peru

The formal declaration of Fujimori's win 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 organized crime gangs and chronic political instability.

"A new chapter begins," she wrote on X.

Having unsuccessfully run for president three times, she won with 50.135 percent of the vote over leftist rival Roberto Sanchez's 49.865 percent on her fourth try.

- 'Papa Fujimori' -

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.

"He wiped out terrorism, that's why I call him Papa Fujimori. Thanks to him there are paved roads, schools in the countryside where nobody used to go," Marta Palomino Quispe, who was a teenager when Fujimori senior governed Peru, told reporters.

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 and Chile's Jose Antonio Kast.

"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 Tuesday.

"It will be fantastic to be able to share this presidency with a woman of your qualities, your character, your patriotism, and your courage, Keiko," Colombian hard-right president-elect Abelardo de la Espriella told Fujimori in a video call.

Brazil's leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva also congratulated Peru's new leader.

"Count on Brazil to build together a more prosperous, integrated, democratic and sovereign South America," he posted on X Friday.

T.Samara--SF-PST