Peru’s presidential election on Sunday puts voters in the position of selecting the country’s ninth president in 10 years, with mandatory voting for Peruvians ages 18 to 70 drawing more than 27 million registered voters, according to election coverage. The contest is set against a backdrop of public frustration over rising violent crime and corruption, and many of the 35 candidates are pitching hard-line plans to address safety concerns and strengthen punishment for serious offenses.
Many Peruvians also appear skeptical about the field of contenders. Construction worker Juan Gómez, 53, said he “can’t trust anyone anymore, nothing’s going to change,” as he carried groceries intended to feed his children, describing how criminals come on motorcycles, force people at gunpoint, and operate without police officers nearby.
Voting is compulsory for most Peruvians between 18 and 70, and the electorate includes more than 27 million registered voters, with about 1.2 million expected to cast ballots from abroad, mainly in the United States and Argentina. Logistical issues prevented some voters from completing ballots Sunday, so authorities extended voting to Monday for about 52,000 people affected.
A candidate needed more than 50% of the vote to win outright, but a June runoff is viewed as virtually assured given the deeply divided electorate and the unusually large slate of candidates—35 on the ballot, the largest in the Andean country’s history. With the runoff still likely, attention is increasingly focused not only on who leads the first-round vote but on the coalition-building that follows.
Crime and corruption are central to what voters say they fear and what candidates are promising. Coverage cited official data indicating homicides have doubled and extortion cases have increased fivefold this decade, alongside protests that have accompanied the security crisis. Retiree Raúl Zevallos, 63, described the danger of daily life, saying people “get on the bus” and do not know if they will get home alive, with criminals shooting and killing drivers.
In policy proposals, several contenders have turned toward sweeping punitive and incarceration-focused measures aimed at responding to the crime wave. The coverage says many candidates have responded with wide-ranging plans, including building megaprisons, restricting food for prisoners, and reinstating the death penalty for serious crimes. The article also cited survey findings that 84% of respondents in urban areas said they feared becoming victims of a crime in the following 12 months, and that more than 200 public transportation drivers were killed in Peru in 2025.
Among the candidates is Keiko Fujimori, a conservative former congresswoman and daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori, and this is her fourth attempt to win the presidency. Fujimori has pledged to crack down on crime with what coverage described as an “iron fist,” and she has defended laws that experts say make prosecutions harder, including changes that eliminated preliminary detention in certain cases and raised the threshold for seizing criminal assets. Coverage adds that she has said judges presiding over criminal cases would be anonymous and that prisoners would have to work to earn their food.
Another contender is Rafael López Aliaga, the conservative former mayor of Lima. He has proposed building prisons in Peru’s Amazon region, allowing judges to conceal their identities, and expelling foreigners who are living illegally in Peru. Comedian-turned-politician Carlos Álvarez is also running, seeking support by promising to convene leaders of El Salvador, Denmark and Singapore to consult on security expertise, according to coverage.
Beyond the presidency, Peruvians are also electing members of a Congress that will operate under a new bicameral structure for the first time in more than 30 years. The coverage says recent reforms will concentrate significant power in the new upper chamber, and while the president would not be able to dissolve the new Senate, the Senate would be able to remove a president from power.
Under the bicameral system described in the coverage, impeaching the president would require 40 of the 60 senators to approve it, compared with 87 of 130 lawmakers needed in the previous unicameral Congress. The bicameral system is returning even though 80% of voters rejected it in a 2018 referendum, and lawmakers later amended the Constitution in 2024 to make the change possible.
Alejandro Boyco, a researcher at the Institute of Peruvian Studies, said in the coverage that the Senate would appoint and sanction high-ranking officials, including the country’s ombudsman, constitutional court members and some central bank directors. He also warned that senators would not be immune to corruption, adding that concentrating too much power in a 60-person chamber creates the risk. Garcia Cano reported from Caracas, Venezuela.