Fujimori's party wins Peru Senate presidency ahead of new government

Miguel Torres won Peru’s Senate presidency with 30 of 60 votes, giving Keiko Fujimori’s Popular Force a foothold in the revived upper chamber before she takes office. The victory came through an alliance with the right-wing Popular Renewal party, whose member Alejandro Muñante secured the first vice presidency.

The leadership vote landed before Fujimori’s presidential inauguration and after Peru’s April 12 general election, when all 60 Senate seats were at stake in the country’s first contest for the restored bicameral legislature. The chamber’s return marked a major institutional change after years of unicameral rule, and the first contest for its top posts immediately turned into a test of how the next government will organize power.

The Senate presidency may be procedural on paper, but in Peru it carries real leverage over the legislative agenda, committee leadership and the internal balance needed to move a new administration’s priorities. In a Congress long defined by fragmentation and open confrontation, control of the chamber’s top slots gives Fujimori’s bloc more room to shape the pace of legislation, influence appointments inside the chamber and limit the risk of instant gridlock.

That matters because Fujimori’s own mandate is narrow. Reuters reported that she won the presidential race over Roberto Sánchez by just 651 votes after a four-day count, a razor-thin margin that left the incoming government with little room for error. Fujimori received her credentials in Lima from National Elections Board President Roberto Burneo on July 15, a step that underscored how quickly the political transition has moved from the ballot box to bargaining over power.

Peru has spent years cycling through executive-legislative clashes, resignations, investigations and leadership crises that have weakened public confidence in its institutions. Torres sought to project restraint after the vote, saying, “No hemos llegado al poder para la revancha,” or “We have not come to power for revenge.” Even so, the Senate result showed that the struggle over control of Congress began before the new president was sworn in, and that inauguration day will not bring a clean reset.