Peruvians choose between two presidential hopefuls with starkly different views Sunday, as they elect their ninth head of state in 10 years amid growing concerns about crime.
Keiko Fujimori, a conservative and daughter of a disgraced former president, and Roberto Sánchez, a nationalist congressman, are on the ballot after beating 33 other candidates in the first round in April, but neither earned even 20% of support. Pollsters estimate that roughly 30% of voters remain undecided.
Sunday’s results are expected to be tight, and if the earlier vote was any indication, the outcome may not be known for days.
Electoral authorities took more than a month to officially declare Fujimori and Sánchez the winners of that vote.
Voting is mandatory for Peruvians from the ages of 18 to 70. More than 27 million people are registered, and of those, about 1.2 million are expected to cast ballots from abroad, mainly in the United States and Argentina.
Voters are still evaluating the candidates
Official results from April’s election showed Fujimori obtained 17% of the vote, while Sánchez garnered 12%.
More than six weeks later, a nationwide poll conducted by the firm Ipsos found that similar shares of voters were supporting Fujimori and Sánchez, with about 3 in 10 saying they were undecided.
Fujimori is linked to the authoritarian and corrupt legacy of the government of her late father, Alberto Fujimori, in the 1990s. She became Peru's first lady in 1994 after her parents’ separation.
Surging crime, particularly extortion, remains the overarching concern
Sánchez is one of the closest allies of jailed former President Pedro Castillo, whom many perceive as corrupt and chaotic. Castillo’s 16-month term saw more than 70 Cabinet changes.
Surging crime, particularly extortion, remains the overarching concern. A 2025 national survey carried out by the state’s National Institute of Statistics and Informatics found that 84% of respondents in urban areas feared becoming victims of a crime in the following 12 months.
Experts attribute the increasing power of organized crime in Peru to the profits that decades-old criminal groups are earning from illegal gold mining in the Andes and the Amazon.
