Fujimori declared President of Peru!
Peru
Lima, July 3 (EFE).
Right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori was officially declared president-elect of Peru on Friday following the certification of results from the presidential runoff election, where she defeated leftist Roberto Sánchez by a narrow margin of 49,641 votes.
Peru’s National Jury of Elections (JNE), the country’s highest electoral authority, certified the results despite unsuccessful attempts by Sánchez to block the process. Sánchez, who had garnered the most votes within the national territory, had alleged electoral fraud without providing evidence and unsuccessfully demanded the annulment of overseas ballots.
JNE President Roberto Burneo officially declared Fujimori Higuchi as President of the Republic during the proclamation of results.
The JNE’s proclamation marks the definitive end of the electoral process, confirming that Fujimori, daughter and political heir of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), secured 50.135% of valid votes with 9,223,396 ballots, compared to 49.865% for Sánchez, who received 9,173,755 votes.
The election took place on Sunday, June 7. The certification, announced on Friday, was delayed by nearly a month due to the slow scrutiny process of the Peruvian electoral system, which requires physical ballots to be transported to the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE) for counting.
This process requires that any ballots with inconsistencies be reviewed by electoral juries, sometimes requiring recounts, which extended the confirmation of Fujimori’s victory by several weeks due to the slim margin between the candidates.
The next step in the transition will be the presentation of credentials to Fujimori, scheduled for July 15 at the Grand National Theater in Lima. Her inauguration, which coincides with Peru’s Independence Day, is set for July 28. Fujimori will begin her five-year term (2026-2031) alongside First Vice President Luis Galarreta and Second Vice President Miguel Torres.
Fujimori’s victory marks the return of Fujimorism to power nearly 26 years after Alberto Fujimori resigned by fax from Japan following a massive corruption scandal during his administration, occurring after he had been re-elected for a third term amid allegations of fraud.
This victory comes during Keiko Fujimori’s fourth presidential bid, having lost previous runoffs to leftist Ollanta Humala (2011), right-wing candidate Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016), and leftist Pedro Castillo (2021).
The previous two elections were decided by margins of 42,000 and 44,000 votes, respectively, making this the third consecutive presidential contest decided by fewer than 50,000 votes in a nation of over 33 million people and 27.3 million eligible voters.
The leader of the Fuerza Popular party defeated Sánchez, who campaigned on behalf of imprisoned former President Castillo (2021-2022), by fully embracing the legacy of her father. Alberto Fujimori passed away in September 2024, shortly after being released from prison following a pardon for his convictions on crimes against humanity and corruption.
The president-elect has pledged to defeat organized crime, the primary concern for Peruvians in this election, echoing the approach taken by her father in the 1990s against subversive groups such as the Shining Path and the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), which once threatened the state and controlled large areas of the country. EFE
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