Fujimori

Announcement comes days after Peru’s electoral agency certified right-wing Fujimori as winner in razor-thin race.

Left-wing candidate Roberto Sanchez has conceded to Keiko Fujimori in Peru’s presidential race, days after the electoral authority declared her the victor in last month’s run-off.

The statement on Monday caps an election season marred by logistical issues at polling sites, long vote counts and allegations of fraud.

Sanchez and his party said they “recognised ⁠⁠that the ⁠⁠National Elections Board had officially proclaimed the ⁠⁠electoral results”. Sanchez had said in June he would not recognise a Fujimori presidency and would instead launch “a movement of popular and patriotic resistance”.

Fujimori and Sanchez had progressed to the June 7 run-off after outpacing 33 other candidates in the April general election.

In the final vote count, certified by the National Jury of Elections (JNE) last week, Fujimori defeated Sanchez by a razor-thin margin, winning about 9,223,000 votes to 9,173,000 for Sanchez.

Sanchez, a member of Peru’s Congress, had fostered support among rural and indigenous Peruvians, following closely in the footsteps of former president Pedro Castillo, who was impeached and arrested in 2022 after attempting to dissolve Congress.

He even wore the same style of wide-brimmed straw hat, common in the northern Andean region, as Castillo on the campaign trail.

Among other platforms, he called for the overhaul of Peru’s constitution to grant greater recognition and autonomy to the country’s varied ethnic groups.

He had also called for state oversight of natural resources and for increased taxes on the highest earners.

As the run-off vote count stretched on for weeks, 57-year-old Sanchez repeatedly alleged voting irregularities and fraud. Election monitors countered the claims, saying no proof had emerged.

Fujimori ran on a tough-on-crime platform, but vowed to unite the country after her win.

She was among several right-wing candidates supported by the administration of US President Donald Trump, which has taken a militaristic approach to fighting organised crime in Latin America.

The 51-year-old is the daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori, who was jailed for human rights abuses before he died in 2024.

Peru has seen years of political churn, with Fujimori set to become Peru’s ninth president in 10 years when she takes office later this month.

She begins amid a period of government transformation, with the country set to reconstitute its legislature into two bodies, the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies.

The Senate was dissolved in the 1990s by Fujimori’s father, creating a unicameral system that critics charged made impeaching a president too easy and common.

Daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori says country is closer to ‘order and hope’ after prolonged vote count.

Right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori is ahead in Peru’s presidential race as the country’s electoral authorities concluded their tally of the vote count after a contentious run-off, which her leftist rival has refused to recognise.

Fujimori said on Monday that she would continue to wait for an official announcement from Peru’s National Jury of Elections (JNE) after the ONPE electoral authority finished a review of contested ballots.

“We are getting closer and closer to embarking on a path of order and hope for all Peruvians,” Fujimori said in a social media post.

Fujimori, the daughter of the late former President Alberto Fujimori – who was jailed for human rights abuses – has pledged to “unite the country” after the final tally showed her beating leftist rival Roberto Sanchez by 50.13 percent to his 49.86 percent, with 100 percent of the votes counted.

The JNE is scheduled to officially announce a winner on July 3, following a drawn-out vote count that has lasted for weeks.

But the results of the June 7 run-off are unlikely to bring an end to Peru’s years of political crisis, which have seen nine presidents take office in just 10 years before being voted out or removed from their post.

Sanchez has refused to recognise the results of the election, which he has said was marred by irregularities and fraud. He has not provided evidence for those claims, but has called for protests to “defend the vote” and said he will file a legal challenge to appeal the official proclamation.

Such claims have become common in Peru, whose political system has become increasingly chaotic amid declining voter trust in elections and government institutions in recent years.

Many voters expressed frustration after the first round of voting in April, when logistical issues delayed voting in parts of the capital, Lima.

Election monitors have cautioned that there was no evidence of widespread fraud but acknowledged voter frustrations.

Al Jazeera’s Mariana Sanchez, reporting from Peru’s capital Lima, said Fujimori has reacted to the result, saying she was very happy that the vote count has finished and would wait with “humility and prudence” until the official declaration of her victory.

“Keiko Fujimori is aware that she has just won by only 49,000 votes. She is not very popular in the country. She has lost three election bids,” Sanchez said.

Members of Fujimori’s party have said they now hope that her opponent, Roberto Sanchez, will recognise the results, she added.

May 15 (UPI) — Peru’s National Office of Electoral Processes finalized the official vote count Friday after 33 days of scrutiny and legal challenges, confirming that right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori and leftist candidate Roberto Sánchez will compete in a presidential runoff June 7.

The final tally of the mid-April voting placed Fujimori first with 17.18% of valid votes.

The main battle centered on second place, where Sánchez secured 12.03% and narrowly overtook conservative candidate Rafael López Aliaga, who finished third with 11.90%, trailing by just 21,210 votes.

“The race for the runoff produced a scenario similar to 2021, with a contest between the left and the right,” electoral law expert José Tello told RPP Noticias.

The dispute over second place shifted dramatically as vote counting progressed in Peru’s remote regions. Early results favored López Aliaga, whose strongest support came from Lima, the capital and largest urban voting bloc.

However, after more than 90% of ballots had been processed, returns from rural and highland regions in southern Peru boosted Sánchez’s candidacy, repeating voting patterns seen in the 2021 election, when then-little-known rural teacher Pedro Castillo advanced to the runoff and later won the presidency.

The final outcome depended on Peru’s Special Electoral Juries, which reviewed 653 disputed and challenged voting records before electoral authorities could release the definitive results.

After the official figures were announced, López Aliaga led a protest outside the headquarters of Peru’s National Jury of Elections, rejecting the outcome, alleging fraud and demanding an international audit, according to Diario Gestión.

With the official count completed, Peru’s National Jury of Elections is expected to formally certify the runoff candidates Sunday ahead of the second-round vote that will determine who governs the country for the 2026-2031 constitutional term.