Peruvians headed to the polls Sunday to choose their next president in a tense runoff that has laid bare the country’s deep political divisions and institutional fragility. The election pits Keiko Fujimori, the hard-right heir to her father’s authoritarian legacy, against Roberto Sánchez, a leftist who has struggled to shed radical economic promises and controversial associations.
Fujimori, 51, has campaigned on restoring order through her father’s signature “mano dura” — iron fist — approach, promising to attract foreign investment by cutting red tape and to crack down on a violent crime wave that includes an extortion epidemic. She has styled herself as the candidate of law and order, but critics say her own record contradicts that message. Many Peruvians, the source reports, accuse her of using her Popular Force party, the largest in the last two congressional terms, to block investigations into corruption and organized crime and to destabilize multiple governments. The nation has had nine presidents in the last decade.
Political scientist Paula Távara, quoted by the source, said a Fujimori victory would bring “performative moderation” while she would use “the levers of power in an authoritarian way.” Távara predicted a “repressive response” to any protests.
Sánchez, 57, has been attempting to pivot to the center after initially promising to nationalize large sectors of the economy and replace imports with local production. His credibility, the source says, has been undermined by the presence on his team of Antauro Humala, a radical former army officer who served a lengthy prison term for leading a 2005 military uprising that left several police officers dead. Sánchez also wears a sombrero given to him by former President Pedro Castillo, a leftist who beat Fujimori in 2021 but was ousted and jailed after attempting to shutter Congress and the courts in a failed bid to avoid corruption probes.
The runoff is Fujimori’s fourth consecutive — she narrowly lost in 2011, 2016, and 2021. In 2016 she refused to concede for months, and in 2021 she made unfounded accusations of electoral fraud, a pattern that has fueled perceptions of her as a “bad loser” among many Peruvians, according to the source.
Polls close at 5 p.m. Peruvian time. If the vote is close, a definitive winner may not emerge for days. The winner will take office amid high expectations to address the crime surge and restore political stability to a country that has cycled through nine presidents in a decade.