Keiko Fujimori and Roberto Sánchez, rivals in the second round in Peru

They received the most votes in the first round, held on April 12 and 13, but the official results were only announced now, due to problems that resulted in the resignation and arrest of members of the country’s electoral body, the recount of electoral records and an order from the electoral court to audit the digital systems used in the election.

Fujimori and Sánchez will participate in the complementary vote to define the successor to the leftist interim president José María Balcázar.

Keiko Fujimori is 50 years old and is running for president for the fourth time, after losing the 2011, 2016 and 2021 elections in the second round.

Daughter and political heiress of former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), she studied business administration at Boston University and obtained an MBA from Columbia University.

She returned to Peru in 2005 and, the following year, was elected to Congress with a record number of votes in the elections for the Peruvian Parliament.

Like her father, who was convicted of corruption and human rights violations (he died in September 2024), Keiko had problems with the justice system: due to accusations of money laundering in her electoral campaigns, she spent almost a year and a half in pre-trial detention, between 2018 and the beginning of 2020. The case was later closed by the Peruvian courts.

During her campaign, she promised a platform of being tough on crime and expelling illegal immigrants. “It is my commitment to restore order in Peru,” said Keiko, in an interview with France-Presse (AFP).

Sánchez was a minister of the former president of Peru convicted of attempted coup d’état

Roberto Sánchez Palomino, 57 years old, graduated in psychology from the National University of San Marcos and has been a national deputy since 2021.

President of the left-wing party Together for Peru, Sánchez was Minister of Foreign Trade and Tourism between 2021 and 2022, during the brief term of former president Pedro Castillo, dismissed by Parliament, arrested and sentenced by the courts to 11 years, five months and 15 days in prison for attempting a coup d’état.

Sánchez’s political life is marked by scandals. He was accused of having participated in a scheme to make payments to the wife of a former presidential advisor to Pedro Castillo to prevent the former advisor from reporting acts of corruption by the then president.

Sánchez was also accused of having brokered the political asylum of former Prime Minister Betssy Chávez, who has been taking refuge in the Mexican Embassy in Lima since last year, to avoid arrest on charges of involvement in Castillo’s coup attempt – the presidential candidate is also accused of participating in the failed maneuver.

The Panorama TV program also reported that Sánchez had used funds from the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism to pay for seafood and other very expensive dishes for him and those close to him. Money from the portfolio would also have been used to wash the clothes of the then minister and his advisors.

In the final stretch of the investigation, the Peruvian Public Ministry requested a prison sentence of five years and four months for Sánchez, alleging that he had provided false information to the National Office of Electoral Processes (Onpe, for its Spanish acronym) about campaign donations between 2018 and 2020. He denies the accusations.

Despite having tried to distance himself from Castillo’s coup attempt, stating that he “learned on television” about the announcement to dissolve the Peruvian Parliament in December 2022 (a measure that was responded to with the dismissal and arrest of the then president on the same day), Sánchez remains very close to the former president.

On the first day of the election, he was at Barbadillo prison to bring breakfast to Castillo, whom he promised to release and resume his government plan if he wins the presidential race.