Peru's president-elect, Keiko Fujimori, has been asking citizens for patience and trust in the weeks before taking office, but the country cannot afford another government that only diagnoses its problems, opinion columnist Cynthia Cienfuegos wrote in a column for World Stock Market.
Fujimori, the daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori, leads Fuerza Popular, the party under which she has run for the presidency in four elections since 2011. Cienfuegos, a cultural manager with more than ten years of experience running social, political and cultural projects in Peru's public and private sectors, sits on the board of directors of the civil association Transparencia, a Peruvian organization focused on democratic transparency and civic oversight. She wrote the column from Cajamarca, where she is based.
Cienfuegos acknowledged that Peru's problems will not be solved in fifteen days. But she said citizens expect a government that is technically and politically prepared to make key decisions and deliver effective, sustainable and decentralized answers to long standing demands.
"No Longer Time for Diagnoses"
She said it is no longer time for diagnoses. Fuerza Popular has run in four presidential elections since 2011, drawn up four government plans, held an absolute majority in Congress in 2016, and kept a significant presence in Congress during recent legislative terms. That record, Cienfuegos argued, means the party has had ample time to study the country's structural problems, and voters now expect that knowledge to become decisions.
In a country as fractured as Peru, she wrote, trust cannot simply be requested. It has to be rebuilt. Confidence in institutions, and among citizens themselves, has deteriorated in recent years, and governing in that climate requires concrete actions, including technical capacity, transparency, multi party and decentralized dialogue, and the inclusion of organized civil society in decision making.
Ucayali as a Warning Sign
Cienfuegos said the government needs to read the country's problems at the local level and understand them within their own regional contexts. As an example, she pointed to the strike in Ucayali, a region in Peru's Amazon basin, which she said is no longer only about rising fuel prices but also reflects a paralyzed hospital, a lack of drinking water, unresolved land titling for rural properties, and the state of university education there. Every episode of social unrest, she wrote, points back to a structural problem that cannot be resolved with emergency measures or temporary fixes alone.
Cienfuegos wrote that, within a month of taking power, the new government should recognize it is asking for patience and trust from a country that has sworn in eight presidents over the past ten years. During that time, she said, extortion complaints have multiplied, the health system remains collapsed, illegal mining continues to expand, Indigenous communities see their territories under threat, violence against women and girls has worsened, and millions of Peruvians face poverty and precarious work.
She closed by writing that she fears the public's patience has run out, and that trust is something the new government will now have to earn.
