Pedro Pablo Kuczynski was on Thursday sworn in as Peru’s president with a Cabinet that shares his Ivy League, pro-business pedigree — a reliance on technocrats that could become a liability as he deals with an unfriendly Peruvian Congress and a resurgent left.
The conservative Kuczynski has economics degrees from Oxford and Princeton and worked for decades on Wall Street and at the World Bank. His Cabinet reflects his preference for brains and the boardroom: It is full of people with doctorates from foreign universities and former captains of Peruvian industry.
“I can’t remember in the country’s history such a pro-business Cabinet,” said Francisco Durand, who teaches political science at Lima’s Catholic University.
In his inaugural address, Kuczynski said that his biggest goal, in addition to fighting drug trafficking and crime, would be delivering drinking water to the roughly 40 percent of Peruvians he said lack such basic services.
He also vowed to make Peru a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Paris-based group of mostly rich nations.
“We want to be seen by the world as a serious country, with a state that lives by its word, and has the best business environment of the continent,” Kuczynski told congress in a 40-minute speech short on policy details. “I want Peru to be a beacon of civilization along the Pacific and in South America that everyone will look upon with admiration.”
However, Peru is a big, hard-to-govern country with deep social divisions and analysts say the lack of political operators could become a problem for Kuczynski as he struggles to reverse an economic slowdown and build support beyond the capital’s elite. It does not help that Peruvians call him the gringo, a reference to the US passport and accent he acquired while living abroad.
At 77, Kuczynski is Peru’s oldest president. He was elected in a runoff last month by the thinnest of margins, just 41,000 votes more than Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of jailed former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori.
His fledgling party secured just 18 of the 130 seats in congress, while the populist Keiko Fujimori has a solid majority of 73 lawmakers.
Even Peru’s left, which had been in the political wilderness for decades, has a larger bloc in congress. It is likely to flex its newfound muscle after tilting the race in Kaczynski’s favor on the eve of the election by staging Peru’s largest protests in years to remind Peruvians of the corruption and criminality associated with the older Fujimori’s rule, warning that the ills would return with a victory by the jailed strongman’s daughter.
Despite the many challenges, there is not likely to be much policy gridlock initially, said Maria Lucia Puig, a Peruvian-born analyst for the Eurasia Group.
Although Kuczynski antagonized Fujimori during the campaign by telling voters she would usher in a “narco state” if elected, he has been conciliatory since and most members of what he calls his “deluxe” Cabinet are not seen as having political axes to grind. His prime minister, Fernando Zavala, headed the local affiliate of SABMiller, while Oxford-educated Peruvian Minister of Economy and Finance Alfredo Thorne worked for decades in finance.
Kuczynski and Keiko Fujimori also broadly share a conservative agenda, although with starkly different bases of support: his coming from the foreign-educated elite of Lima and Keiko Fujimori’s from the countryside, where her father is still lionized for taming hyperinflation and a Maoist insurgency during his decade-long rule in the 1990s.
“He knows very well that he needs her support in order to govern,” Puig said.
Among his biggest challenges will be jump-starting mining investment that has slowed along with the economy as a result of low prices for Peru’s copper and gold, as well as violent protests from rural communities opposing mines.
A bigger concern might be the reaction of the left if Kuczynski gets too cozy with his former rival. That seems unlikely for now: Keiko Fujimori is one of the few politicians who did not meet with the incoming president during the transition, a sign the wounds from the bitter campaign have yet to heal.
A potential source of tension with the left is Alberto Fujimori’s request this month for a presidential pardon.
Kuczynski has rejected the idea repeatedly, but said he would sign legislation giving older inmates, including the 77-year-old Fujimori, the right to house arrest.
The left is also uneasy over a business-heavy Cabinet so identified with the clubby power circles of Lima. Even Kaczynski’s social welfare minister, who is to be in charge of protecting the 6 million mostly rural Peruvians living in poverty, hails from Peru’s biggest business lobby group.
Kuczynski has tried to dampen concerns about conflicts of interest by asking every Cabinet member to resign from any board positions before taking office. However, his own business dealings after previous stints in government have also drawn controversy, stoking fears he will put the interests of his corporate friends first.
“If the government ends up being seen as very Lima-centric, very white and very austere, then we could see the prairie burn,” said Mauricio Zavaleta, who also teaches at Catholic University. “It would be the perfect enemy that could give rise to vengeful rhetoric.”
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was