Peruvians Vote Sunday in Presidential Runoff Between Keiko Fujimori and Roberto Sánchez

Peruvians head to the polls this Sunday for a presidential runoff between Keiko Fujimori and Roberto Sánchez, a contest that has become a referendum on two controversial figures in the country’s recent political history.

The race pits Fujimori, leader of Popular Force and daughter of the late former President Alberto Fujimori, against Sánchez, a former minister and political ally of former President Pedro Castillo who remains imprisoned after attempting to dissolve Congress and establish an emergency government in December 2022.

ABC

TRT World says polls opened in Peru on Sunday in the runoff between Fujimori and Sánchez, with the winner poised to be the country’s ninth leader in a decade.

TRT World adds that the winner of Sunday’s election, which began at 7 am local time (1200GMT) and is set to continue for 10 hours, will be inaugurated on July 28 for a five-year term.

ColombiaOne frames the campaign as focused on opposing interpretations of the past, with Fujimori defending her father’s legacy and Sánchez questioning the judicial process against Castillo.

MUNDIARIO describes the runoff as a choice between two opposing projects as Peru seeks to end a decade of political crisis, with the election arriving after presidents were ousted and institutions clashed amid growing public distrust.

MUNDIARIO says more than 27.3 million Peruvians are required to vote—except those over 70—and that the real challenge begins the next day after the next president takes office on July 28.

Al Jazeera

Folha de S.Paulo reports that, in the latest Ipsos survey conducted on May 29 and 30, Keiko appears with a slight numerical advantage over Sánchez: 40.4% to 38.3%, a tie within the margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.

Folha de S.Paulo also highlights blank and null votes totaling 21.3% in the survey released last Sunday (31), and it links the result to a crisis of representativeness marked by nine presidents passing through the House of Pizarro and only three parties remaining continuously in Congress from 2001 to 2021.

MUNDIARIO says whichever candidate wins will inherit a country with uneven growth, weakened institutions, parliamentary fragmentation, and a citizenry tired of living in permanent political emergency.

Beyond the vote, MUNDIARIO says the future leader will have to build parliamentary deals in a particularly complex context because Fujimorism starts with a relative advantage in legislative representation but lacks a sufficient majority, while Sánchez also does not have a bloc capable of guaranteeing stability on its own.

MUNDIARIO adds that the revival of the Senate is another variable, with supporters believing it can introduce institutional checks and balances and limit the excessive use of tools like presidential vacancy, and critics seeing it as another layer of complexity.

ColombiaOne says Sánchez has maintained a favorable stance toward his imprisoned ally Pedro Castillo and, at the close of his campaign, told supporters in Lima that a victory for him would mark the end of the “chaos” that, in his view, has characterized recent years of government in Peru.

ColombiaOne also says Castillo’s attempted self-coup on December 7, 2022 led to his removal from office by Congress and his arrest, and it notes that he has remained imprisoned after being sentenced last November to more than 11 years in prison.

Folha de S.Paulo reports that a judge accepted the request to investigate Sánchez on last Friday (the 5th), accused by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of giving false statements about his party's financing six years ago, while it says Keiko spent more than a year in prison in 2018 and 2019 on charges of having received bribes from Odebrecht.