Peru faces presidential runoff as election count drags on after ballot delays

With 75% of ballots tallied, official results on Tuesday showed Keiko Fujimori, the conservative daughter of a disgraced former president, leading the count with 16.8% of support, while Rafael López Aliaga, the ultraconservative former mayor of Peru’s capital, Lima, earned 12.8%.

Jorge Nieto Montesinos held a close third place with 11.87% of the vote, maintaining a narrow mathematical chance of reaching the June 7 runoff.

The sluggish pace of the count mirrored Peru’s 2021 presidential election, a contest where final tallies weren't completed until five days after the polls closed.

A presidential candidate needs more than 50% of votes to win outright. The two candidates with the most votes will advance to the runoff. The winner will be Peru’s ninth president in just 10 years.

The election has been mired with logistical issues that left thousands of people in the country and abroad unable to cast ballots. That prompted authorities to allow more than 52,000 residents of Lima to vote on Monday. The extension, announced after vote counting had begun Sunday evening, also covered Peruvians registered to vote in Orlando, Florida, and Paterson, New Jersey.

“I’m fed up,” Iris Valle, 56, said as she waited to vote Monday at a public school in Lima. She feared that her employer would cut her pay for not showing up early, because she had to meet her voting obligation.

Voting is mandatory for Peruvians from the ages of 18 to 70. Failure to do so comes with a fine of up to $32.

The election took place amid a surge in violent crime and corruption that has fueled widespread discontent among voters, who largely view candidates as dishonest and unprepared for the presidency.

Peru’s economy, however, has defied both the crime surge and the political instability stemming from a revolving door of presidents, having had three since October alone. Aided by its status as one of the world’s largest copper producers, the country posted more than 3% growth in 2024 and 2025. Though that’s lower than the 5%-6% annual growth it saw in the 2000s.

Will Freeman, a fellow for Latin American Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, explained that the independence of the country’s central bank has also contributed to economic growth.

“Although Peru has had all these presidents, it has had only one central bank president since the mid-2000s, Julio Velarde,” Freeman said. “He’s been a real source of stability and given investors some confidence that there is an institutional core that remains from one presidency to the next in Peru.”

Still, Freeman warned, Peru can't afford to be complacent as current growth is lower than the 5%-6% annual rates the country saw in the 2000s and recent congressional decisions point to “a more conservative economic populism.”

In her fourth bid for the presidency, Fujimori has promised to crack down on crime with an iron fist, but she has also defended laws that experts say make it difficult to prosecute criminals. The laws, which her party backed in recent years, eliminated preliminary detention in certain cases and raised the threshold for seizing criminal assets.

If elected, she has said that judges presiding over criminal cases will be anonymous and prisoners will have to work to earn their food.

Meanwhile, López Aliaga has proposed building prisons in the country’s Amazon region, allowing judges to conceal their identities and expelling foreigners who are living illegally in Peru.

Voters were also asked to choose the members of a bicameral Congress for the first time in more than 30 years, following recent legislative reforms that concentrate significant power in the new upper chamber.

Regina Garcia Cano reported from Caracas, Venezuela.

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