A political dynasty heiress and a former trade minister advance to Peru’s presidential runoff

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peruvian voters will choose their next president between a political dynasty heiress and a former trade minister who has promised to reform Peru’s mining sector, after advancing on Friday to Peru’s June presidential runoff election.

Keiko Fujimori, the conservative daughter of a disgraced former president, and Roberto Sánchez, a nationalist congressman, will face off to become Peru’s ninth president in just 10 years. Both beat 33 other candidates with promises to put an end to surging crime, the top priority for Peruvians whose country’s mining-driven economy has proved resilient to political instability.

With 100% of the ballots counted from the April 12 election, Keiko Fujimori of Fuerza Popular led the field with 17.18% of the vote. According to the final results published Friday by the National Office of Electoral Processes, Roberto Sánchez of Juntos por el Perú finished second with 12.03%, securing his place in the June 7 runoff.

The election was mired with logistical issues that left thousands of people in the country and abroad unable to cast ballots on Sunday. That prompted authorities to allow more than 52,000 residents of Lima to vote on Monday. The extension, announced after vote counting had begun Sunday evening, also covered Peruvians registered to vote in Orlando, Florida, and Paterson, New Jersey.

The election took place amid a surge in violent crime and corruption that has fueled widespread discontent among voters, who largely view candidates as dishonest and unprepared for the presidency.

Many of the contenders responded to the crime concerns with wide-ranging proposals, including building megaprisons, restricting food for prisoners and reinstating the death penalty for serious crimes.

Peru’s economy, however, has defied both crime and the political instability stemming from a revolving door of presidents, having had three since October alone. Aided by its status as world’s second largest copper producer, the country posted more than 3% growth in 2024 and 2025.

The runoff election, scheduled for June 7, will be reminiscent of the 2021 runoff contest. That saw Fujimori vie against rural school teacher and political neophyte Pedro Castillo, whom Sánchez staunchly supports and even emulates by wearing the kind of wide-brimmed hat for which he was known.

Castillo defeated Fujimori by roughly 42,000 votes with heavy support from Peru’s rural low-income communities. He governed Peru until December 2022, when he was impeached and detained after he attempted to dissolve Congress.

Now in her fourth bid for the presidency, Fujimori has promised to crack down on crime with an iron fist, but she has also defended laws that experts say make it difficult to prosecute criminals. The laws, which her party backed in recent years, eliminated preliminary detention in certain cases and raised the threshold for seizing criminal assets.

Meanwhile, Sánchez promised to repeal those laws. He also pledged to strengthen police intelligence capabilities to combat extortion, which has increased fivefold in five years.

Sánchez also stood out during the campaign for making economic proposals that differ from the market-friendly policies Peru has applied over the past two decades. The congressman has said he would like to renegotiate contracts with mining companies operating in the county, arguing that the state should collect more taxes. He has also said that rural communities should own a share of the mines operating in their territory and said he opposes open-pit operations. These reforms however would be difficult to implement for Sánchez, who does not have a congressional majority.

Will Freeman, a fellow for Latin American Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Fujimori is “perhaps Peru’s only remaining career politician and the only one with a real political party,” in the sense that she has a nationwide organization and continuity over time. This could allow her to tackle the surge in crime, but he said he expects her to do so selectively.

“She and that party have in the past sponsored legislation against organized crime that ironically created many of the tools that prosecutors used to investigate them in the 2010s,” Freeman said, referring to the corruption investigations Fujimori faced. “Now, they have since led the charge to destroy a lot of those mechanisms in the legislation.”

The winner of the runoff will be sworn in on July 28 for a five-year term.

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Garcia Cano contributed from Mexico City.