Peru’s largest congressional bloc is rewriting the country’s security playbook. Fuerza Popular, the right-wing party led by Keiko Fujimori, has leveraged its dominant position in Congress to push through a wave of legislation expanding police powers, militarizing borders, and shifting how security forces face prosecution.
Fujimori secured 17.19% of the vote in the first electoral round and will face a runoff in June 2026 as the front-runner for the presidency. The legislative blitz is laying groundwork for what would be a “mano dura” government, a term that translates to “iron fist” and carries unmistakable echoes of her father Alberto Fujimori’s anti-terrorism campaigns in the 1990s.
