LIMA, Peru — Peru’s election officials have officially validated the results from April’s initial presidential voting round on Sunday, establishing a June 7 runoff between Keiko Fujimori and Roberto Sánchez.
While the complete vote tally was announced Friday, Peru’s National Elections Board needed to formally approve the outcome to establish the second voting round, as no candidate secured more than half of all valid ballots cast.
Fujimori, a 50-year-old congresswoman and daughter of late President Alberto Fujimori running for Fuerza Popular, secured 2.8 million ballots representing 17.19% of the total count. This marks her fourth time reaching a presidential runoff.
Sánchez, representing the Juntos por el Perú party and previously serving as foreign trade minister under former President Pedro Castillo, earned 2.015 million votes for 12.03% of the total.
The two candidates defeated 33 other contenders by pledging to address escalating crime rates, which ranks as the primary concern for Peruvians living in a nation whose mining-based economy has remained stable despite ongoing political turmoil.
Since more than 70% of voters selected neither Fujimori nor Sánchez during the initial voting, both candidates must build alliances with other parties to secure victory in the upcoming runoff.
The South American nation continues struggling through an extended political crisis that has witnessed eight presidents take office and leave within nearly ten years of conflicts between Parliament and executive leadership, plus demonstrations that resulted in 50 protester deaths from 2022 through 2023.
