The scrutiny of the second round of the presidential elections in Peru concluded this Monday, June 29, 22 days after the vote held on June 7, and confirmed the triumph of the right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori over the leftist Roberto Sánchez, by a narrow difference of 49,641 votes.
With the scrutiny completed 100% by the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE) of Peru, Fujimori obtained 50.135% of the valid votes by receiving 9 million 223 thousand 396 votes, compared to 49.865% for Sánchez, who totaled 9 million 173 thousand 755 ballots.
It is the third consecutive presidential election in Peru that is decided by less than 50 thousand votes.
The National Election Jury (JNE) plans to officially proclaim the results next Friday, July 3, in an event in which Fujimori will be declared president-elect of the country. On July 15 he will receive the credentials and on July 28 he will assume the Presidency in a ceremony in Parliament, on the occasion of Peru’s national day.
The daughter and political heir of former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) managed to be elected president in her fourth candidacy, after losing the second round of the three previous presidential elections against Ollanta Humala (2011), Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016) and Pedro Castillo (2021).
However, Sánchez, who participated in these elections on behalf of the imprisoned former president Castillo, announced that he will not recognize Fujimori as president, denouncing, without presenting evidence, an alleged fraud in the vote abroad, whose results he requested to annul without success, since, as he stated, this would have given him victory, since he was the candidate with the most votes within the national territory.
Fujimori thus won the most complex presidential election in the history of Peru, in which 35 candidates participated, which dispersed the vote and allowed her to be the most voted in the first round, with just 17.19% of the votes, followed by the 12.03% obtained by Sánchez.
The triumph of Keiko Fujimori will allow her to govern the country for the next five years (2026-2031), after a decade of political instability, during which Peru has had eight presidents in ten years, as a consequence of a succession of presidential dismissals promoted from Parliament, the majority with Fujimori votes.
It will be the return of Fujimorism to power after 25 years, since his father resigned by fax from Japan, after a gigantic corruption scandal was uncovered in his administration that subsequently led him to be sentenced to 25 years in prison for that case and for crimes against humanity.
The leader and candidate of the Fuerza Popular party campaigned with the main promise of “recovering order”, at a time when the main concern of Peruvians is the increase in citizen insecurity due to the rise of organized crime.
Fujimori participated in the presidential elections for the fourth time with a total vindication of the legacy of his late father, who laid the foundations for economic growth and commercial opening in the country, while defeating the subversive groups Sendero Luminoso and Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru (MRTA) through a strategy that also cost him a prison sentence, along with corruption scandals linked to his right-hand man, advisor Vladimiro Montesinos, who is close to being released from prison.