Peru president-elect for the Fuerza Popular party, Keiko Fujimori, waves as she gives a statement at her campaign headquarters in the San Borja district of Lima on July 3, 2026. (Photo by AFP)
Lima: Peru's president-elect Keiko Fujimori on Friday said a "new chapter" was beginning as the highest electoral authority confirmed her narrow victory.
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 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.
