Peru Heads to Presidential Runoff Between Keiko Fujimori and Roberto Sánchez in Tight Race
The candidates, who together received 29% of first-round votes, face a tight contest amid record political turnover and low turnout.
Washington ExaminerPeruvians go to the polls on Sunday in a presidential election runoff that pits Keiko Fujimori against Roberto Sánchez. Fujimori, daughter of the late president Alberto Fujimori, won 17% of the vote in the first round in April 2026. Sánchez, a leftist congressman and former trade and tourism minister, took 12% and edged out Rafael López Aliaga, an ultra-conservative former Lima mayor.
2%. The candidates together represent 29% of first-round support after a campaign that began with a record 35 candidates. Sánchez, 57, served as a minister for former president Pedro Castillo.
Castillo was ousted in December 2022 after attempting to dissolve congress and rule by decree, and was sentenced in November 2025 to 11 years and five months in jail for rebellion. Sánchez has pledged to free Castillo and restore government “to the people,” while backing down from an earlier pledge to remove central bank head Julio Velarde. Fujimori is making her fourth presidential run.
Her father spent 16 years in jail for authorising kidnappings and murders before dying in 2024. Her Fuerza Popular party holds more seats than any other in congress, which recently reinstated the bicameral system. Peru has had eight presidents since July 2016, only three of them elected.
The last president ousted, José Jerí, 39, was accused of influence-trafficking in meetings with Chinese businessmen. He was replaced by current head of state José María Balcázar, 83, who is best known for his support for child marriage. More than 6 million Peruvians did not turn out to vote in the first round despite fines, and another 3 million spoiled their ballots.
“Politicians have lost a lot of credibility, and very few people trust them any more,” said Santiago Pedraglio, a sociologist at Lima’s Pontifical Catholic University. “The time has come for the true rebirth of our nation: a sovereign, just nation built from the foundations of the Peruvian people,” Sánchez told foreign reporters last month.
