Peruvians went to the polls on Sunday, 7 June 2026, in a presidential runoff between hard-right candidate Keiko Fujimori and leftist Roberto Sánchez, with polls showing Fujimori holding a narrow lead heading into the vote.
The runoff follows a turbulent first round on 12 April 2026, in which Fujimori of the Popular Force party placed first with 17.19% of valid votes from a field of 35 candidates, while Sánchez of the Juntos por el Perú coalition came second with 12.03%.
As reported by Al Jazeera, the election has been marked by controversy. Allegations of electoral fraud surfaced after the first round, were investigated by the National Jury of Elections, and subsequently rejected by international observers before the runoff was confirmed.
Peru’s presidential runoff: Fujimori vs Sánchez
Keiko Fujimori, 51, is the daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori, who ruled Peru through the 1990s and was later jailed for human rights abuses and corruption.
This is Keiko’s fourth consecutive presidential runoff bid, a record in modern Peruvian political history. She has positioned herself as a law-and-order candidate, with anti-crime and economic stability as her core platform.
Roberto Sánchez, a psychologist turned politician, has served in congress as a representative for Lima since 2021. He represents a left-leaning platform focused on poverty reduction and expanding social services.
The race has been described as one of the most polarised in Peru’s recent democratic history, with neither candidate holding a comfortable lead in pre-election polling.
What is at stake in Peru’s 2026 election
Peru has cycled through an extraordinary number of presidents in recent years, the result of persistent constitutional crises, corruption investigations and congressional power plays.
The country has had six presidents since 2016. Whoever wins on 7 June will inherit a nation that is simultaneously one of South America’s stronger economies by GDP output and one of its most politically unstable.
Peru is the world’s second-largest copper producer and a significant gold and silver exporter. Political uncertainty has weighed on investor confidence and complicated infrastructure development in the country’s mining regions.
The next president will take office in July 2026 for a five-year term.
Both candidates have faced sustained questions about their fitness to lead. Fujimori has faced multiple corruption prosecutions linked to her party’s alleged acceptance of funds from the Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht, charges she has consistently denied.
Sánchez, a relative newcomer to national politics, has been criticised for a lack of governance experience and a platform that critics describe as vague on fiscal policy.
Peru’s constitutional court ruled in May that the election would proceed as scheduled, dismissing legal challenges from third-party candidates who sought to have the first round results annulled.
Preliminary results from Sunday’s vote are expected in the hours after polls close, with official results likely to take several days to certify.
