Right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori and leftist Roberto Sanchez will face off in Peru’s presidential runoff on June 7, according to the final vote count released Sunday.
The daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori won the first round on April 12 with 17.1 percent of the vote, followed by Sanchez with 12 percent, the National Jury of Elections (JNE) announced.
Ultraconservative Rafael Lopez Aliaga finished in third place with 11.9 percent, losing to Sanchez by some 21,200 votes.
The first round was marked by delays in the delivery of electoral materials in the capital Lima, with authorities having to reopen some polling stations for a second day.
Still, while the European Union’s election observation mission noted problems in how the vote was conducted, it gave it its seal of approval.
The upcoming runoff is expected to mirror the deeply polarized second round of 2021, when Keiko Fujimori faced leftist candidate Pedro Castillo, who went on to serve as president before being ousted in December 2022.
This will be the fourth time Fujimori, 50, is running for president.
For Sanchez, a 57-year-old former trade minister under Castillo, this is his third bid for the office.
Sanchez begins his runoff campaign embroiled in legal troubles. Prosecutors have requested a prison sentence of five years and four months against him for allegedly providing false information to the electoral authority regarding contributions to his campaign between 2018 and 2020.
The two candidates will compete for the presidency against a backdrop of profound political instability, with Peru having cycled through eight presidents since 2016.
The majority were either removed from office or stepped down to avoid a similar fate over corruption accusations.
Peru is also battling a deepening security crisis, fueled by a sharp rise in organized crime.
