Fujimori crashes to 28% as Peru's right fails the test of power
Keiko Fujimori's honeymoon is over. Barely eleven weeks after taking office in Peru, the right-wing president's approval has crashed to 28.3%, while 53.6% disapprove of her performance. The latest LatAm Pulse survey, conducted by AtlasIntel for Bloomberg and reported on October 14, shows a 14.5-point approval collapse from the preceding monthly reading.
Fujimori ran promising order, competence and a decisive break with political dysfunction. In government, the slogans have met the same problems that slogans cannot solve: insecurity, economic anxiety and the hard work of winning support for actual policy.
A collapse across the polls
The Bloomberg–AtlasIntel figure is the lowest recent nationwide presidential approval reading identified for Fujimori. It is not a voting-intention result: it measures public approval of her performance as president.
The decline did not begin in October. Ipsos recorded 57% approval and 25% disapproval in August, then 42% approval and 48% disapproval in September. Another polling firm, Datum, found support dropping from 60% to 42% over its August-to-September series. The Institute of Peruvian Studies separately measured 37% approval against 49% disapproval in September. These are different surveys with different methods; their shared message is the erosion of her opening support.
Bloomberg's latest report adds the reason this erosion matters. In the AtlasIntel survey, 62% judged the economy to be in bad shape and 64% said the same of the labor market. Insecurity ranked among the country's main problems for 42% of respondents. Those figures describe public concerns, not a proof that every economic difficulty began under Fujimori.
Easy to obstruct, harder to govern
Fujimorismo has long been effective at exercising power against other administrations. After winning 73 of 130 seats in the 2016 Congress, Fuerza Popular could obstruct presidents and ministers from a commanding parliamentary position. Its history was built not just on electoral campaigning, but on the ability to make governing miserable for rivals.
Now the balance has flipped. Fujimori's party holds 41 of 130 seats in the lower house, and the president must bargain for every major measure. Her government sought temporary authority to legislate by decree on 66 measures over 120 days. Deputies cut that request to just 20 measures over 90 days, leaving some of her flagship security plans outside the authorization.
This is the contradiction at the heart of her predicament. Condemning other governments is easy. Building a majority, funding public services, raising living standards and showing results against organized crime are harder. A political movement trained to win arguments through confrontation now needs the votes of people it once treated as obstacles.
The right's opposition machine meets reality
The political right is often strongest when it can reduce complicated social failures to a villain: the left, migrants, protesters, teachers or the previous government. In opposition, everything is someone else's fault. In office, voters can finally ask the simplest question: What changed for us?
Fujimori's response has leaned toward displays of discipline and security. Her administration has announced a unified police-military command to confront organized crime, while proposing restrictive school appearance rules. But a tougher pose cannot substitute for safer neighborhoods, stable work or a more affordable life.
The president inherited a deeply troubled political system, and El Niño has increased the economic risks facing Peru. Eleven weeks is not enough to judge an entire term. It is, however, long enough to test the distance between the right's extravagant promises and its early governing capacity. The polls show that distance widening at remarkable speed.
For years, Fujimorismo could sabotage power and call it strength. Now it possesses the presidency and cannot hide behind the opposition benches. The movement promised Peru it knew how to govern. Peruvians are beginning to deliver their verdict.
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