It risks being a short honeymoon for the ex-Wall Street banker, who won a run-off vote by such a thin margin that his victory is trapped in limbo as the courts deal with outstanding challenges to a handful of smudged or otherwise questionable ballots. For other cabinet picks, he said he’s looking for people with a more political background. Alberto Fujimori is serving a 25-year jail sentence for human rights crimes, embezzlement and bribing media outlets.
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“In a democratic spirit, we accept these results”, she said, flanked by members of her Popular Force party, who will have a majority in Congress from late July.
Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of ex-President Alberto Fujimori, won 49.88 percent of the votes.
Authorities have declared Pedro Pablo Kuczynski the victor in the Peruvian presidential election, four days after final ballots were cast. His fledgling party holds just 18 seats.
Keiko Fujimori during the campaign pledged she would never pardon her father, but Kuczynski was more flexible.
At 77, Kuczynski will be Peru’s oldest president when he is sworn in July 28 and, as a former Wall Street investor who has spent much of his life in the USA, he has a notable lack of appeal among the country’s poor.
However, the victor said he would seek to grow close to “important players” in Congress, where Fujimori has the support of 73 lawmakers, giving her an absolute majority in the 130-seat chamber.
In his first interview since declaring himself the victor, published in Semana Económica on Friday, Kuczynski said that he would not oppose a general law allowing elderly prisoners to finish their sentences under house arrest.
Still, he said he had doubts whether Fujimori’s Popular Force party would push for such an outcome because many hardliner loyalists would consider it a political defeat.
“They want him to walk out the front door, but there was a conviction”, Kuczynski told Semana Economica magazine.
The scandal, which fueled fears of a return to the corruption and criminality associated with her father’s authoritarian rule, proved decisive: After trailing in pre-election polls, Kuczynski prevailed by fewer than 43,000 votes, making it the closest race in Peru since 1962.
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Her party has 20 seats in the incoming Congress.
