Peru votes in knife-edge runoff between Keiko Fujimori and Roberto Sánchez for ninth president in a decade

Around 27 million Peruvian voters are called to the ballot box on Sunday, 7 June 2026, to choose their next president in a tightly contested runoff between right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori and leftist congressman Roberto Sánchez. The election follows a fragmented first round in April where the two candidates together secured less than 30% of the vote, a contest marred by logistical failures and fraud allegations that deepened public distrust in the country's institutions.

A polarised choice amid deep instability

Fujimori, 51, is the daughter of the late autocratic president Alberto Fujimori and is making her fourth consecutive bid for the presidency. She campaigns on a platform of economic liberalism, a hardline crackdown on crime modelled on El Salvador's Nayib Bukele, and warnings against the danger of "communism." Sánchez, a 57-year-old former trade and tourism minister, claims the rural, populist legacy of jailed ex-president Pedro Castillo, whose trademark white sombrero he has adopted. He advocates for greater state intervention in strategic sectors, police reform, and a political overhaul that would allow citizens to call a constituent assembly via referendum.

There is a lot of disorder and corruption, and we're going to vote, as always, for the 'lesser evil'.

A dead heat in the polls

The final Ipsos poll published on Thursday shows the candidates in a statistical tie, with Sánchez at 43.8% and Fujimori at 43.2%. A subsequent survey on Saturday gave Fujimori a marginal lead of 44.1% to 43.7%. Around a fifth of the electorate remained undecided shortly before the vote. The tight margin has raised fears that the losing side will contest the legitimacy of the result, prolonging the political crisis that has seen eight presidents cycle through office since July 2016.

Anti-Fujimori sentiment is still strong, though weaker; and Sánchez, little-known, is an unknown quantity. Whoever wins will face questions of legitimacy if the result is close. That means more instability.

The shadow of Castillo and Fujimori

Sánchez has rallied support in the rural Andes by pledging to pardon Pedro Castillo, the schoolteacher-president jailed after his failed attempt to dissolve Congress in December 2022. Fujimori, meanwhile, leans on the polarising legacy of her father, who stabilised the economy and defeated a Maoist insurgency but was convicted of crimes against humanity and corruption. She has sought to position herself as a candidate of national reconciliation while recruiting 100,000 observers to guard against the fraud she claims marred her previous narrow defeat.

They won't be able to do the same thing to us again.

Logistical hurdles and a long count ahead

Electoral authorities have already warned that the vote count could take up to a month, echoing the chaotic first-round tally. Difficulties in transporting electoral registers from remote areas and complex bureaucratic appeal procedures have stoked fears over the transparency of the process. Polling stations open at 07:00 local time (14:00 CEST) and close at 17:00 (24:00 CEST).

A country exhausted by crisis

Whoever wins will inherit a nation gripped by rising organised crime, which has overtaken corruption and the economy as voters' top concern. Neither candidate is expected to command a majority in Congress, forcing the next president to build fragile alliances to survive a full five-year term. The constitutional provision allowing parliament to remove a president for "permanent moral incapacity" remains a central driver of the instability that has chewed through nine leaders in a decade.

At the current rate, we might have five more presidents in five years.