LatAm in Focus: What's Testing Keiko Fujimori's Presidential Honeymoon?

Peru's President Keiko Fujimori wasted no time defining the two immediate priorities of her administration. "We fear for our lives when we go out into the streets or that our homes will be flooded," she said during her July 28 inauguration speech to Congress, as she outlined plans to combat rising rates of extortions and other crimes and prepare for a potentially devastating El Niño weather phenomenon. 

Three months into her presidency, Fujimori's pledge to quickly tackle these issues has run into a major hurdle: Congress. The legislature took two months to approve the new president's request to take executive control of crime and disaster response measures and cut the original package down to less than half its size. Now in the top office, Fujimori confronts a newly bicameral Congress in which the influence of her People's Force party may not be as strong as it was while leading the opposition for much of the last 15 years.

As fujimorismo steps into a new role as the ruling party, the movement is finally “trying to get some new allies from independent or even opposition groups. And this is probably the new scenario in the Peruvian landscape,” said Peruvian political analyst Carlos Meléndez, a columnist for El Comercio currently based at the University of Lisbon. In this episode of Latin America in Focus, Meléndez talks to AS/COA Online’s Khalea Robertson about key issues defining the new president’s priority agenda.

Despite Peru's solid economic performance in recent years, Meléndez notes that "Peruvian state capacity is underperforming," complicating the government's efforts to mitigate El Niño’s damage. On the security front, Peru joined the U.S.-led Shield of the Americas in September. Meléndez points to this cooperation with the United States as the biggest difference to otherwise familiar crime-fighting strategies.  

The conversation also covers Fujimori's pragmatic approach to balancing closer U.S. cooperation with longstanding Chinese trade ties, and the "unusual" 17-point drop to a 40 percent approval rating as the leader approaches the 100-day milestone of her presidency.