The Fuerza Popular candidate for the Presidency of Peru, Keiko Fujimori, is ahead by just one point over the Juntos por el Perú candidate, Roberto Sánchez, with more than 89% of the ballots from the presidential elections held this Sunday having been counted.
According to the provisional count by the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE), Fujimori has so far accumulated 50.5% of the votes, equivalent to 8.59 million votes, while Sánchez reaches 49.4%, with 8.40 million ballots in his favor.
More than 27 million citizens were called to vote, including 1.2 million Peruvians residing abroad, in an election considered one of the tightest electoral contests in recent years in the Andean country.
Fujimori has won in large urban centers, such as Lima, the capital, and Cuzco, while Sánchez has garnered strong support in regions that have historically denounced the strong centralism of the State.
The Juntos por el Perú candidate has secured majorities in the center, south, and east of the national territory, which concentrate large rural, jungle, and mountain areas. Fujimori, for her part, has obtained her best results in the coastal strip.
Quick Count Points to a Technical Tie
As the official scrutiny progresses, the quick count prepared by the consulting firm Ipsos paints a picture of a technical tie between the two contenders, placing Sánchez with 50.3% of the votes and Fujimori with 49.7%.
Although Fujimori has tried to downplay the relevance of this projection, Sánchez has expressed his hope that it will represent a "recovery for democracy." The Fuerza Popular candidate has stressed that "it would be irresponsible to define the result based on a sample" of around a thousand electoral ballots, as reported by the newspaper "La República."
Unlike her stance on the eve of the first round, Fujimori has reiterated that she will abide by the verdict of the polls and has urged Sánchez to make the same commitment. Along these lines, she has called on her representatives and poll workers to exercise extreme vigilance in the process, considering that their work "is now more important than ever."
In parallel, during a speech before his followers in San Martín square, in the historic center of Lima, the left-wing candidate proclaimed that the end of the "mafia pact" that, in his opinion, has taken over power is beginning. "From the Peru of all bloodlines (...) they have decided to come and reclaim the government," he stated.
The polling stations remained open between 7:00 AM and 5:00 PM (2:00 PM and 12:00 AM in mainland Spain), with a total of 92,766 polling stations set up, according to data provided by the electoral authorities. Of these, 2,260 were located in the region of Metropolitan Lima and in the constitutional province of Callao, where significant logistical incidents occurred in the first round due to the distribution of electoral material.
In this second round, the president of the National Elections Jury (JNE), Roberto Burneo, assured at a press conference that "there has been no fraud" in the development of the day and that "everything has been duly carried out."