The popularity of President Keiko Fujimori plummeted in October as Peruvians expressed growing concerns about the economy and crime, as well as growing skepticism about a closer alignment with Donald Trump and the United States.
Fujimori’s approval rating fell to 28.3% in early October, a drop of 14.5 percentage points from the previous month, according to LatAm Pulse, a survey conducted by AtlasIntel for Bloomberg News and published on Wednesday. Disapproval rose to 53.6%, an increase of about 13 percentage points, according to the survey.
The figures point to a erosion of the high expectations that Fujimori received when she took office at the end of July, after narrowly winning the runoff in her fourth bid for the presidency. She had promised to restore order after years of rising insecurity and political turbulence that saw the copper-rich nation have nine different leaders in the last decade.
Nearly a third of Peruvians — 62% — consider the economy to be poor, compared with 22% who consider it good, according to the survey. A similar figure, 64%, said the job market is weak. All three indicators worsened compared with last month, and only Argentina shows a worse economic sentiment than Peru among the region’s largest economies, according to AtlasIntel.
Despite the political chaos, Peru has boasted one of the most stable economies in the region in recent years.
But the gloomier outlook likely reflects the anticipated consequences of a worsening El Niño forecast, with the phenomenon projected to be the strongest ever recorded. The central bank cut its growth forecast for 2026 to 3.2%, as El Niño affects agriculture and fishing while fueling inflation, which has already surpassed the 3% target for seven consecutive months.
Concerns about crime have also risen, with 42% of Peruvians ranking insecurity among the country’s main problems. Although this number remains well below the peaks from a year ago, it represents an increase of more than 3 percentage points from the previous survey.
After two initially more conciliatory months in office, Fujimori adopted a harsher public rhetoric, seeking to form alliances in Congress. At the end of September, she expressed frustration with lawmakers who spent six weeks debating her government’s request for temporary powers to govern by decree in security and disaster response issues.
“They are testing our patience,” Fujimori said.
The Chamber of Deputies later approved a substantially more restrictive version of her request, and the measure is now under consideration in the Senate.
Fujimori announced last week a unified command of the police and the armed forces to combat organized crime and expel foreigners who commit crimes. Over the weekend, she attended an event surrounded by heavily armed soldiers and referred to the conflict that pitted Maoist insurgents against the State in the 1990s, during her father’s presidency, former President Alberto Fujimori.
This week, after a high-profile sexual assault case at a school operated by the Navy, Fujimori announced plans to ban makeup, painted nails, and excessively long or dyed hair in public schools, in addition to revising the length of school skirts.
Critics drew parallels with measures introduced in schools last year by El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, whom Fujimori openly praised.
Peru also recently joined the Americas Shield, an American-led initiative to combat organized crime, while the Trump administration seeks to expand its influence in Latin America.
Nearly half of AtlasIntel’s respondents view unfavorably the willingness of regional governments to align with US security policies, while 33% say that this alignment severely limits Peru’s autonomy to make its own decisions about organized crime.
AtlasIntel interviewed 2,024 people in Peru between October 2 and 7. The survey has a 95% confidence level and a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
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