Peru votes in tight presidential runoff

Peruvians vote Sunday in a presidential runoff that could deliver the country its 10th president in a decade, with hard-right perennial candidate Keiko Fujimori facing leftist Roberto Sánchez in a polarized race that polls suggest is too close to call.

Fujimori had led by several points for much of the campaign, with about a quarter of voters undecided, but Reuters reported that Sánchez may have narrowed the gap in the final week. Al Jazeera reported that a Thursday poll by Ipsos showed Fujimori’s lead had disappeared after Sánchez moderated his platform.

The election is Fujimori’s fourth consecutive runoff after narrow defeats in 2011, 2016 and 2021. Known widely as Keiko, she has built her career around the political movement of her father, the late former President Alberto Fujimori, a divisive figure credited by supporters with defeating hyperinflation and the Shining Path insurgency but condemned for abuses including death squads, shutting Congress, bribing journalists and corruption. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison and died in 2024.

Fujimori has campaigned on restoring “order” amid a wave of violent crime and extortion, and has pledged to attract foreign investment by cutting red tape. At a May 31 debate, she framed the vote starkly: “Either we do something now to fix our country, or we repeat the same recipe that already failed. Order or chaos. These are the two options our country faces today.”

Her critics accuse her of helping destabilize Peru through her Popular Force party, which has been the largest party in the last two congressional terms. They say she used congressional power to block corruption and organized crime investigations, threaten impeachments and undermine governments, contributing to the country’s nine presidents in the past decade.

“If she wins, there will be performative moderation. There will be this discourse about dialogue and democracy, but the reality will be that she will have her hands on the levers of power and will use them in an authoritarian way,” political scientist Paula Távara told NPR. “If there are protests, expect a repressive response.”

Fujimori also faces scrutiny over her own record. Al Jazeera reported she was put in pretrial detention three times in a money-laundering investigation, though a court last year threw out the case as “flawed.” After her 2021 loss, she spent weeks trying to overturn the result with baseless fraud claims.

Sánchez, 57, is also a deeply polarizing candidate. A former trade and tourism minister under Pedro Castillo, he has campaigned in a sombrero given to him by the former leftist president, who defeated Fujimori in 2021 before his government collapsed in December 2022. Castillo was ousted and jailed after trying to dissolve Congress, seize the courts and rule by decree ahead of an impeachment vote.

Sánchez initially condemned Castillo’s attempted power grab and has denied prior knowledge of it, according to Al Jazeera. He now says Castillo is a victim of political persecution and has promised to pardon him. He also initially proposed nationalizing large sectors of the economy and replacing imports with local production, though he has since moved toward the center.

His moderation push has been complicated by his alliance with Antauro Humala, a radical former army officer who served a long prison term for leading a 2005 uprising in which several police officers were killed. Al Jazeera reported Sánchez has since distanced himself from Humala.

For many voters, the choice is difficult. “I think her father, while he did some good things, was bad for the country overall, and I think she wants to be like her father,” Lima hospital worker Eduardo Salazar told Al Jazeera. “But I almost want to vote for her this time so she stops trying.”

Polls close at 5 p.m. Peruvian time. A winner could be declared Sunday night, though a close result may take days to resolve.