Pedro Pablo Kuczynski took office as Peru’s president on Thursday, asking the opposition-controlled Congress to help him fight income inequality and ensure all Peruvians have access to running water, health care and free primary education.
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Speaking to congress in Lima, the 77-year-old former finance minister and Wall Street veteran said his government will reduce bottlenecks to existing infrastructure projects within six months, ease regulation for small businesses and cut the sales tax by 1 percentage point January 1.
As Kuczynski starts his term in office, he is hoping to revive the important mining sector, strengthen the police and prisons to bring down crime and crackdown on corruption.
Ms Fujimori, the daughter of incarcerated ex-President Alberto Fujimori, was once favourite to win the vote but eventually lost by less than a quarter of a percentage point.
He predicted Kuczynski would seek to expand Peru’s domestic refining and smelting capacity, and pointed out that his first scheduled trip is to China – which he called a key player in the president’s strategy to make Peru a “metallurgical powerhouse”.
He will need support from Ms Fujimori’s party to enact reforms, however, since it controls congress.
“Some of the congressmen from Fujimori’s Popular Force Party are already saying that they will not give a greenlight to everything Kuczynski proposes”. Fujimori took five days to concede as results trickled in from the remote reaches of the Peruvian Amazon.
The race opened old wounds dating back to the 1990s, when Fujimori’s father Alberto was president.
The president-elect reiterated that what he would be willing to sign into law, if proposed by Congress, a measure to allow elderly prisoners to serve out their sentences under house arrest.
Kuczynski, the son of a Jewish doctor from Germany, has had a long career in business and finance.
Kuczynski was educated at a school in northern England and studied piano and flute at London’s Royal College of Music, before studying at Oxford University and Princeton and working at the World Bank.
He stressed his age and experience during the campaign.
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But he sometimes struggles to connect with ordinary Peruvians.
