Peru Election: Keiko Wins First Round, Rival Unknown

Peru went to the polls on Saturday with 35 candidates on a ballot the size of a television screen, and came away knowing only half the answer: Keiko Fujimori will be in the runoff. Who she faces there may not be clear for days.

Exit polls from Ipsos and Datum International released after polls closed on Sunday evening placed Keiko Fujimori of Fuerza Popular first at 16.5–16.6% of the vote, confirming what pre-election polling had suggested: the daughter of the late dictator Alberto Fujimori would advance to her fourth consecutive presidential runoff on June 7. But the identity of her opponent—the question that will define whether Peru gets a right-vs-left rerun of 2021 or a right-vs-right novelty—remains entirely unresolved, trapped in a four-way statistical dead heat that official counting may take days to break.

The Quadruple Tie for Second

The exit poll data diverges just enough to keep every scenario alive. Ipsos places Roberto Sánchez of Juntos por el Perú—the political heir of jailed former president Pedro Castillo—in second at 12.1%, followed by 80-year-old media personality Ricardo Belmont at 11.8%, ultraconservative billionaire Rafael López Aliaga at 11%, and former defense minister Jorge Nieto at 10.7%. Datum’s numbers shuffle the order: López Aliaga at 12.8%, Nieto at 11.6%, Belmont at 10.5%, Sánchez at 10.0%. All four fall within the 3% margin of error of both polls. The spread between second and fifth place is just 2.1 percentage points in Ipsos and 2.8 in Datum—statistically meaningless.

The composition of the runoff will determine its character entirely. A Fujimori-Sánchez matchup would replay the traumatic left-right polarization of 2021, when Castillo defeated Fujimori by 44,000 votes. A Fujimori-López Aliaga contest would force Peru into the unprecedented position of choosing between two right-wing candidates, potentially alienating the entire left-of-center electorate. A Fujimori-Belmont or Fujimori-Nieto pairing would pit establishment conservatism against populist insurgency of different flavors. Each scenario produces a different Peru for the next five years.

The Logistics Disaster

The vote itself was marred by a logistical failure that has already become politically weaponized. More than 211 polling stations across 15 voting centers in Lima failed to open on Sunday due to problems distributing electoral materials, leaving approximately 63,000 voters unable to cast ballots. ONPE chief Piero Corvetto called it a “limited logistical problem.” The Jurado Nacional de Elecciones disagreed, ordering an extraordinary extension of voting to Monday morning—the first time in modern Peruvian electoral history that a general election has spanned two days.

The 63,000 affected voters represent approximately 0.24% of the 27 million registered electorate—unlikely to alter Fujimori’s first-place position but potentially decisive in the razor-thin fight for second. The extension also delayed the release of official results: ONPE indicated that initial counts covering 60% of processed ballots would not be available until after midnight. López Aliaga, who had led many polls throughout the campaign before declining sharply in the final month, alleged without evidence that “a fraud was underway”—a claim that investigative outlet Convoca undermined by revealing that the logistics company responsible for the material distribution failure had been a supplier to Lima’s municipality during López Aliaga’s own tenure as mayor.

Keiko’s Fourth Shot

Fujimori visited her parents’ graves before voting on Sunday—her father Alberto, the autocrat who ruled Peru in the 1990s and died in 2024 after a contested humanitarian pardon for crimes against humanity, and her mother Susana Higuchi, the former first lady who accused her husband of ordering her torture. “The last wish of my father was that I run,” she told reporters. She was accompanied by her daughters Kyara and Kaori and her sister Sachi. This is her first campaign without her father alive—and potentially the first one she could win.

Her 16.5% represents the consolidation of a base that has sustained her through three defeats and multiple imprisonments over Odebrecht-linked corruption charges that were ultimately dismissed in January 2025. In all three prior runoffs she alleged fraud and challenged the results, destabilizing the incoming government each time. Whether she can convert the fourth attempt into victory depends entirely on who emerges from the quadruple tie—and whether that opponent can unite the 83.5% of voters who chose someone else.

What Markets Are Watching

Peru produces 11.8% of the world’s copper, and the election will determine the regulatory framework for new mining projects at a time when global demand for the metal—driven by electrification, AI data centers, and defense spending—has never been higher. As our full election guide detailed, S&P Global noted that a right-wing outcome would likely produce faster permitting and lower royalty rates. That describes all four candidates in contention for second place except Sánchez, whose left-wing platform includes higher mining taxes and greater community consultation requirements. Beyond the runoff question, Peru also elected a bicameral Congress for the first time in 34 years on Sunday—130 deputies and 60 senators—returning the country to the two-chamber system that was abolished under Alberto Fujimori’s 1993 constitution. The composition of the new Senate will shape whether the next president can govern or faces the congressional obstruction that has destroyed every administration since 2016. Official results are expected to trickle in through the week. Peru’s voters have once again chosen uncertainty. The runoff is June 7.

Related Coverage: Peru Elections 2026: Complete Guide • Peru Votes Saturday: Final Pre-Election Snapshot • López Aliaga: Milei Economics, Bukele Security