‍After some 11 hours of congressional debate, apologies to the nation and a hastily mounted legal defense, Peru's 79-year-old president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski won a reprieve after it looked almost certain he would be pushed out of office after just 16 months for undeclared business ties to the scandal-riddled Brazilian builder Odebrecht.

Faced with a seemingly insurmountable number of congressional votes against him from the majority opposition party Fuerza Popular, the hard-left Frente Amplio as well as lawmakers in smaller parties, Kuczynski’s salvation came from where it was least expected – from the party which wanted his head from the start.

Fuerza Popular has its roots in the 1990s populist and authoritarian government of Alberto Fujimori who is in jail for authorizing death squad killings, corruption and vote-rigging. His daughter Keiko is the party’s leader and narrowly lost the last two presidential elections in the second round (2011, 2016).

It was her younger brother Kenji who broke ranks leading a group of nine lawmakers from Fuerza Popular in abstaining from the parliamentary vote. Kuczynski, popularly known as PPK, survived impeachment by just eight votes, so the abstentions were absolutely crucial. For Kenji it was a break with the party line and points to an already widely rumored sibling rivalry with his elder sister Keiko, who tightly controls the group.

Clearing the obstacle of impeachment, Kuczynski must avoid “clumsy mistakes and distance himself from his business past” if he is to see out his term, says Eduardo Dargent, a political scientist at Lima’s Catholic University.

Even Kuczynski himself admits he is not a great communicator. The Oxford and Princeton-educated leader is widely regarded as one of the world’s technocratic elite but he is not a natural politician.

“He’ll need more political intelligence to combat the low blows from the opposition,” Dargent told CGTN.

Many of Peru’s major political figures of the last 20 years are being probed or already face charges linked to an unfolding bribery scandal around the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht. 

The company admitted handing out bribes of 800 million US dollars in 12 mostly Latin American countries in a plea deal with the US Justice Department in 2016. Now more evidence is emerging as key figures from the company in Brazil negotiate their jail time.