In sour concession speech, Peru’s Fujimori vows to lead opposition

LIMA, (Reuters) – Keiko Fujimori conceded defeat yesterday to Pedro Pablo Kuczynski in Peru’s tightest presidential election in decades, but she warned that her rightwing populist party would be a force of opposition during his term.

Fujimori, the 41-year-old daughter of Peru’s jailed ex-authoritarian President Alberto Fujimori, said the centrist former investment banker Kuczynski had only scraped together a narrow victory with the support of “promoters of hate.”

“We wish much luck to Mr. Kuczynski and his campaign friends who will accordingly be his allies in government,” Fujimori said, flanked by the dozens of incoming lawmakers who will give her Popular Force party a solid majority in the next Congress.

“The people have tasked Popular Force with being the opposition,” Fujimori said. “Rest assured, we will not fail.”

Fujimori has not yet congratulated Kuczynski in person after the election as per Peruvian tradition.

The speech, Fujimori’s first since Sunday’s election after a vote-count dragged on for days, laid bare the hostilities that could block Kuczynski’s proposals to lower sales taxes and give rebates to companies that reinvest their profits.

“The first thing we must do is to create an environment in which we can turn the page,” Kuczynski, a 77-year-old former prime minister and World Bank economist, said later on local broadcaster RPP.