Comment on A former Wall Street banker is taking over one of South America's fastest-growing economies

A former Wall Street banker is taking over one of South America's fastest-growing economies

REUTERS/Mariana BazoLima (AFP) - Former Wall Street banker Pedro Pablo Kuczynski takes office as Peru's president Thursday, seeking to kick-start a slowing economy and unite a country deeply torn by a photo-finish election. Since winning the run-off race by a razor-thin margin last month, the man known as PPK has named a politically inoffensive cabinet of technocrats and extended olive branches to rival parties. Peru is one of Latin America's fastest-growing economies, but growth slowed under outgoing leftist President Ollanta Humala, from 6.5 percent in 2011 to 3.3 percent last year. Kuczynski, 77, has vowed to stimulate the economy, revive the key mining sector, fight the poverty that affects 22 percent of Peruvians, and strengthen the police and prisons to reduce crime. But his party, the center-right Peruvians for Change, has just 18 seats in the 130-member Congress. The new legislature is dominated by the party of his defeated rival, Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of disgraced and jailed ex-president Alberto Fujimori. Her party, Popular Force, has 73 seats.

 

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