- Lead. Peru holds a presidential runoff on 7 June 2026 between right-wing Keiko Fujimori and leftist Roberto Sánchez Palomino — a stark ideological choice for a country that has churned through eight presidents since 2016.
- Fact. The two finalists combined took fewer than a third of first-round votes in April, underscoring how fragmented and disillusioned Peru’s electorate has become.
- Stake. The result will determine whether Peru continues the private-sector economic model that has driven growth, or pivots toward state expansion and a new constitution — with knock-on effects for regional investors and multilateral lenders.
Peruvians return to the polls on Sunday after a first round on 12 April that left no candidate close to a majority. Keiko Fujimori, 50, of the conservative Fuerza Popular (Popular Force) party led the field with approximately 17 per cent of valid votes, while Roberto Sánchez Palomino, 57, of the centre-left Juntos por el Perú (Together for Peru) edged into second place with around 12 per cent, narrowly besting the far-right businessman Rafael López Aliaga on an almost identical tally. The fractured first round set up a contest that, in a country with more than a dozen credible parties, amounts to a runoff of elimination rather than enthusiasm.
The candidates
Fujimori is contesting her fourth consecutive presidential runoff — an achievement that speaks both to the loyalty of her conservative base and to the depth of opposition she consistently attracts. The daughter of imprisoned former president Alberto Fujimori, who died in 2024, she founded Popular Force after serving in Congress (2006–2011) and has long been the dominant figure on Peru’s right. Money-laundering charges linked to campaign financing were dismissed in October 2025, removing a legal cloud that had shadowed her previous bids. Her platform centres on a “deregulatory shock” to attract foreign, and specifically United States, investment, tough-on-crime measures including military control of prisons and plans to build four new high-security facilities, and a defence of the 1993 constitutional framework. Sánchez, a psychotherapist from the coastal city of Huaral, entered national politics via the 2021 Congress and served as foreign trade and tourism minister under Pedro Castillo before resigning when Castillo was impeached in 2022. His programme calls for progressive taxation, the renegotiation of mining contracts to introduce windfall levies, state involvement in energy and infrastructure, and a new constitution. Notably, he has pledged to pardon Castillo, a commitment that galvanises his southern Andean base but alarms centrist voters whose support he needs to win.
The landscape: instability and a polarised map
Peru’s political dysfunction provides the backdrop to everything. Since 2016 the country has seen no fewer than eight presidents, as a fragmented Congress has repeatedly exercised its power to impeach or force resignations. Approval ratings for the political class are persistently low, and turnout for the first round was dented by logistical failures that extended voting by a day in some areas. López Aliaga, who finished third and has alleged — without substantiation accepted by electoral authorities — that the count was fraudulent, has declined to endorse either finalist, leaving his roughly 12 per cent of first-round supporters to make their own calculations. That refusal is significant: Popular Force holds approximately one-third of congressional seats, and a formal right-wing alliance would have given Fujimori a clearer advantage.
Polling in the final week before the vote shows Fujimori holding a narrow but consistent lead. An Ipsos survey conducted 29–30 May gave her 38 per cent against Sánchez’s 35 per cent; a Datum Internacional poll from 26–30 May put her at 39.8 per cent to his 35.9 per cent. Crucially, around 27 per cent of respondents said they intended to spoil their ballot or abstain, a large bloc reflecting widespread rejection of both options rather than genuine enthusiasm for either. The geographic divide is sharp: Fujimori commands Lima and the northern coast, while Sánchez draws strength from the southern highlands, rural communities, and voters who identify with the excluded periphery that Castillo briefly represented.
The economy and security are the dominant issues. Crime has surged over four years, making public safety a central preoccupation for urban voters — ground on which Fujimori’s hawkish platform performs well. On the economy, Sánchez’s proposed constitutional rewrite and expanded state role have unnerved business groups and the financial community; markets have tracked the polling closely, with the sol broadly stable but sensitive to shifts in the race. Analysts note that a Sánchez victory would likely trigger capital outflows and complicate relations with multilateral lenders, while a Fujimori administration would face its own challenge governing with a fractious Congress it does not fully control.
Whatever the result on 7 June, Peru’s deeper structural problem — a constitutional order that empowers Congress to destabilise almost any executive — will remain unresolved. Both candidates have spoken of the need for political stability; their prescriptions for achieving it could scarcely be more different. Polling stations open at 08:00 local time (13:00 UTC), with early official results expected the same evening from the Oficina Nacional de Procesos Electorales.