Electoral authorities in Peru reported that 99.76% of ballots from the April first round presidential election had been counted as of Tuesday, leaving the contest headed toward a runoff between the two candidates with the highest shares of the vote.
With the count nearly complete, conservative Keiko Fujimori held a lead with 17.17% of ballots tallied. Leftist Roberto Sanchez was in second place at 12.00%, narrowly ahead of ultra-conservative former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, who stood at 11.91%.
Sanchez maintained a margin of roughly 15,000 votes over Lopez Aliaga as additional results continued to trickle in through Peru’s ONPE electoral office. Officials said several thousand ballots remain to be processed, representing roughly 50,000 votes in total, though voting patterns observed in recent days suggested the overall outcome was unlikely to change dramatically.
The country’s electoral authorities set a deadline for the final announcement of the first-round result by May 15, following weeks of delays that electoral bodies attributed to logistical problems and after the process became the focus of fraud allegations from some camps.
Lopez Aliaga has been among those who publicly alleged irregularities in the counting, a dispute that coincided with the resignation of Peru’s top electoral official. That official is now the subject of an inquiry by the public prosecutor. European Union observers said they did not find concrete evidence of fraud.
No candidate secured sufficient support to avoid a second-round vote. A runoff between the top two finishers is scheduled for June 7.
Separately, results from April’s general election indicated that the parties aligned with Fujimori and Lopez Aliaga together would hold a majority in both chambers of Peru’s reinstated bicameral legislature - the Senate and the lower house.
Key context provided by the count:
- Ballots counted so far: 99.76%.
- Top three first-round shares: Fujimori 17.17%; Sanchez 12.00%; Lopez Aliaga 11.91%.
- Outstanding ballots: several thousand uncounted, representing roughly 50,000 votes.
The counting process and its aftermath remain under scrutiny as Peru moves toward the scheduled runoff.