Former Wall Street banker Pedro Pablo Kuczynski was sworn in as Peru's president Thursday, the latest conservative head-of-state to take office in a wave that signals a reversal of Latin America's socialist, or pink, tide.
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Kuczynski has economics degrees from Oxford and Princeton universities and has worked for decades at the World Bank. He has named a total of eight economists to his cabinet, and an assortment of sociologists, diplomats and corporate executives, articulating his preference for technocrats over career politicians.
At 77, Kuczynski is now the oldest president to take office in Peru. He was elected in a runoff election last month by a margin of 41,000 votes over Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of the country's jailed former dictator Alberto Fujimori. This follows a regional trend in which conservative leaders in Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, have either been elected or installed to succeed socialist or more Leftist heads-of-state.
Kuczynski's party holds 18 of 130 seats in Congress, while Fujimori enjoys a solid supermajority of 73 legislators that could easily block the new president’s legislative initiatives.
Even the left-wing lawmakers led by Veronika Mendoza, who returned to parliament after 30 years of absence, have more Congressional seats than does the ruling bloc.
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The conservative leader has pledged to focus his efforts to fight drug trafficking and organized crime, he has also promised to deliver drinking water and electricity to the more than 10 million Peruvians who lack of such basic services.
The presidents of Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico and Paraguay were present at the inauguration ceremony. Kuczynski assumes the presidency of Peru for the period 2016-202.