Peru’s first-round election, held on April 12, has taken a dramatic turn. At the top of the list of the most voted-for candidates, there is no doubt: with 92.96% of the ballots counted, right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori, daughter of dictator Alberto Fujimori (in office from 1990 until his ouster in 2000), remains in first place with 17.06% of the votes. This means that Fujimori will participate in her fourth runoff election. She has lost the previous three.

In reality, the vote-by-vote battle is contesting for second place. And it is a battle that has kept Peru on the edge of its seat. For most of Monday, April 13, it appeared that second place in the June 7 runoff would be contested by the former mayor of Lima, the ultra-conservative Rafael López Aliaga, also known as “Porky”, and the candidate of the Good Government Party, Jorge Nieto, a center-right figure. Thus, it seemed that Peru would have to choose between different variations of the Peruvian right.

However, once the vote tallies from Peru’s rural areas began to come in, the picture changed dramatically. Typically, the vote tallies from Lima, the country’s most populous city, are the first to be officially counted, while those from rural areas – historically marginalized and impoverished – take longer to be finalized, which helps to clearly illustrate the deep economic and cultural divides between the countryside and the city in this Andean nation.

Sánchez: an uncomfortable surprise for the far right

The figures trickling into the election authority, the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE), had the right clenching its fists. The Peruvian left’s candidate, psychologist and congressman Roberto Sánchez Palomino, began climbing the electoral rankings, much to the chagrin of candidate López Aliaga.

At the moment, Sánchez, of the leftist party Juntos Por el Perú (JPP), is in second place in the vote count, with 11.97% (1,879,206 votes), while López Aliaga, of Renovación Popular (RP), has 11.91% (which amounts, for now, to 1,869,897 votes). In other words, less than 10,000 votes separate them, turning the election into a vote-by-vote battle.

Sánchez has emerged as a loyal supporter of former President Pedro Castillo, who took office in 2021 and was ousted by a coalition of opposition parties in Congress in 2022 when he attempted to convene a Constituent Assembly – a move that Peru’s economic and political elites refused to allow, calling it “an attempted self-coup”.

Following this, massive protests erupted in Peru. They were brutally suppressed by the new president, Dina Boluarte, Castillo’s former vice president, who is now under investigation for human rights violations, as more than 50 protesters were killed and thousands were injured during the demonstrations.

Castillo is currently in prison, although Sánchez has promised that if he wins the election, he will release him; Sánchez served as Minister of Foreign Trade and Tourism during Castillo’s term. In fact, Sánchez has been one of the few politicians to defend Castillo and the protesters who have expressed their rejection of Boluarte’s new government, which has been supported by Peru’s economic and political elites as long as it serves their interests. Once it appeared that the danger of a popular uprising had been quelled, Boluarte was ousted by the very same parties that had placed her in the executive branch.

On X, Sánchez expressed his gratitude for the vote: “Thanks to God, to Pachamama, and to our ancient people; restorative justice for the martyrs of the southern Andes — either the lives of the people of rural Peru are respected, or democracy is meaningless! May a constitutional president never again be deposed or detained. The holy people have spoken: Freedom for Pedro Castillo!”

Exchange of statements

For now, Sánchez has expressed confidence that he will make it to the runoff: “We are moving forward calmly, with serenity; we are confident in the support of our people … because the records don’t lie … these elections must be respected … There is an immense desire for change.”

López Aliaga, however, has not taken the news well, claiming that electoral fraud is taking place, although he has not presented any evidence to support this. In addition, he has filed a legal appeal to try to stop the announcement of the results, which he has said he will not recognize.

In addition, he has offered a reward of 20,000 soles (about USD 5,700) to anyone who can prove that fraud occurred, which is allegedly keeping him from his goal of governing Peru for the time being. He has also called on his supporters to mobilize in front of the National Elections Board and said that if the fraud continues, there could be a “civil uprising”.

For her part, Keiko Fujimori has rejected the allegations of fraud and has asked López Aliaga to provide evidence to support his accusation. In response to the possible call for a civil insurgency, she said: “I will not respond to insults, but we cannot allow a call for an insurgency. In a democracy and under the rule of law, party leaders have a duty to preserve order.”

Fujimori has already lost an election to a leftist candidate whom few considered a serious contender at the start of the campaign: Pedro Castillo. Fujimori has always maintained a radical anti-leftist stance, so she was pleased when, as the quick count began, Castillo’s candidate, Sánchez, was in seventh place: “The quick count results are a very positive sign for our country, because, as I pointed out in the debate, the enemy is the left”. Now the possibility has reopened that Fujimorism may have to face an enemy that, many analysts believe, it would have preferred to avoid.

Read more: Balcázar sworn in as Peru’s eighth president in 10 years

But the vote count is so close that anything could happen. The truth is that after an election with 35 candidates, a historic fragmentation of the vote, and widespread disillusionment with the political system, most Peruvians will still have to choose between two candidates they most likely did not vote for in the first round, which could complicate the future president’s administration. Furthermore, the president will have to face a Congress that will most likely return to its logic of attempting to impeach the sitting president – a pattern that has already led to eight presidents in 10 years.

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