Peru’s presidential election Sunday is already turning into the kind of political cliffhanger people will argue about for weeks.
By Thursday afternoon, with at least 93 percent of votes counted, right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori advanced to a runoff, placing first; leftist congressman Roberto Sánchez finished second.
Peru election: distrust meets a left-wing opening
None of the dozens of candidates came close to winning outright in the first round.
To take the top job without a runoff, Peru requires at least 50 percent of the vote—and even the leaders fell short.
Fujimori landed around 17 percent, while Sánchez got about 12 percent, according to the still-slow count that only became clearer in the middle of the week.
European Union observers said the election appeared free of fraud.
Still, the overall political mood is less about confidence and more about fatigue—Peruvians, as one political scientist put it, are dealing with “exhaustion in the face of an endless series of corruption problems,” paired with “hopelessness, discouragement, and disinterest.” And if you were standing outside polling stations, you could feel it in the low-key chatter—more sighing than cheering.
What surprised some observers is that most polls had been expecting two right-wing names to move forward: Fujimori and former Lima Mayor Rafael López Aliaga.
Sánchez’s relatively strong showing suggested that a left-wing platform still has pull, even after Peru’s recent turmoil.
Former leftist President Pedro Castillo’s attempted power grab in 2022—ending in his impeachment—shadows the whole field.
Castillo is currently in prison, but he endorsed Sánchez, who won votes in Peru’s poorer and more rural areas.
Sánchez has promised to increase spending on health and education, legalize informal mining, expand state control over natural resources, and oversee constitutional changes meant to deliver more public services toward Indigenous Peruvians.
On the other side, Fujimori and López Aliaga both signaled hard-line anti-crime crackdowns and pro-market policies, though they sound different in tone: Fujimori tries to present herself as more conciliatory, while López Aliaga has leaned into a self-described admiration of U.S.
President Donald Trump.
In recent days, López Aliaga also voiced unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud.
U.S.-Brazil crime cooperation tests political trust
Sánchez’s momentum may also be moving markets, or at least spooking them briefly.
On Wednesday, his performance prompted some international investors to sell off their Peruvian holdings, and the country’s currency and stock market dropped in value.
The runoff vote gap between López Aliaga and Sánchez stood at fewer than 20,000 votes as of Thursday afternoon, and few polls have been conducted on how Fujimori would fare against either rival.
There’s also plenty of baggage to unpack for the June 7 runoff.
Fujimori has run for president three times without winning, and she remains deeply tied to her father, former President Alberto Fujimori—who ruled as a dictator.
She backs pro-market economics and an aggressive anti-crime stance, with both loyal followers and detractors.
Sánchez, meanwhile, has connections that could turn off some voters: he is an ally of Antauro Humala, a former member of the military who spent 17 years in prison for involvement in a pro-Indigenous, ethnic nationalist uprising.
Even with all that, preliminary congressional results suggest right-wing lawmakers will outnumber left-wing ones in Peru’s legislature, though neither side will have a strong majority without centrists.
While Peru settles into a runoff rhythm, the U.S.
is also dealing with shifting partnerships in the region.
U.S.-Brazil relations have looked “on ice” in recent months, with a planned U.S.
visit by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva not happening as floated for March.
The reasons weren’t clearly stated, but Lula has criticized U.S.
military interventions in Venezuela and Iran.
Still, a new anti-crime cooperation effort is emerging.
Last Friday, Brazilian Finance Minister Dario Durigan said the U.S.
and Brazil established a partnership to detect and curb illegal flows of guns and drugs.
Brazil’s tax authority and U.S.
Customs and Border Protection will work together to track illegal payments, Durigan said, and he linked the initiative to a phone call between Lula and Trump last year about anti-crime strategies.
The Trump administration has also considered designating Brazilian organized crime groups First Capital Command and Red Command as terrorist organizations, but Brazil opposes the move—arguing it’s a misclassification that could lead to unfair sanctions on companies that unknowingly transact with the groups.
Even with that progress, there’s been confusion.
In the days since Durigan’s announcement, contradictory statements about a high-profile Brazilian detained in the United States raised doubts.
On Monday, U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported that it had Alexandre Ramagem, a former Brazilian official, in custody; Ramagem had been convicted of plotting a coup to keep former President Jair Bolsonaro in office but evaded capture in Brazil.
Brazil’s federal police said an unspecified fugitive was detained in the United States through cooperation, and Lula called publicly for Ramagem’s extradition.
But a Ramagem ally said he was simply arrested at a traffic stop.
By Wednesday, ICE had released him—so, yeah, cooperation is in motion, but trust isn’t exactly settled yet.
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