After three painful consecutive defeats in which she fell short of power by very narrow margins, Keiko Sofía Fujimori Higuchi has finally reached the highest position in Peru, the presidency. The National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE) has closed the calculation of 100% of the minutes of the second electoral round, held on June 7, confirming that the leader of the conservative right and daughter of the late former president Alberto Fujimori is the new president.
The agonizing outcome lasted for more than three weeks, due to the meticulous scrutiny of contested records before the Special Electoral Juries (JEE). Now, without turning a corner, it is known that Fujimori obtained 50.135% of the valid votes compared to 49.865% for his opponent, the leftist leader Roberto Sánchez. A minimal but irreversible difference of 49,641 votes consolidates the return of Fujimorism to the Government Palace through democratic means, 36 years after his father assumed command for the first time in 1990.
“The ONPE has reached 100% of the minutes scrutinized. We receive this result with great humility, prudence and great responsibility,” said the winner outside her residence in Lima, adopting a remarkably moderate tone in the face of a deeply polarized country. It is clear that Peru has two souls, two halves, according to what was expressed at the polls.
For their part, the losing candidate, Roberto Sánchez, and his allied sectors have launched new accusations of alleged irregularities, fueling social tension in a country fatigued by institutional instability. It does not seem that they are going to prosper and that Peru is already beginning a new legislature with The Chinano one knows if it will be five years, as established by the constitution, or shorter, as national instability has been forcing in recent times.
The end of the runoff curse
For Keiko Fujimori, 51, this result means the breaking of a political stigma. In the 2011, 2016 and 2021 elections, the conservative Fuerza Popular candidate had experienced consecutive second-round defeats against Ollanta Humala, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Pedro Castillo, respectively. In all those scenarios, their failures were decided by margins of less than 1.5%, fueling a widespread resistance popularly known as “anti-Fujimorism.”
Critics frequently joked that his rejection level was so high that “he would lose the presidency even if he ran against a panettone,” the typical Christmas sweet. However, this year’s general elections have reconfigured the board. In the first round, held on April 12, Fujimori won with 17.192% of the support, followed by Sánchez, with 12.093%, in a fragmented field of candidates: up to 36 presented themselves, a record.
Presidential candidates Keiko Fujimori, from Fuerza Popular, and Roberto Sánchez, from Together for Peru, participate in a debate in Lima, Peru, on May 31, 2026.
During this runoff campaign, Fujimori skillfully exploited the wear and tear of the left and the memory of Castillo’s chaotic and dismissed cabinet, linking Sánchez to the old government schemes to divide the vote. Although the leftist significantly moderated his economic program in the last week before the election – which caused the initial advantage that the Ipsos polls gave to Fujimori to dissolve, until reaching a technical tie, on the back of centrism – the mobilization of right-wing networks and the decisive weight of Lima, the capital, ended up tipping the balance.
The geographical analysis of the vote provided by media such as DW exposes the seams of a fragmented nation. Sánchez dominated in 16 of the country’s 25 regions, displaying solid support in the rural areas of the central highlands and, overwhelmingly, in the southern highlands (such as in Puno, where the leftist candidate swept with 613,000 votes compared to just 96,000 for Fujimori). On the contrary, Fujimori cemented his victory by winning in only nine regions, but with very high demographic density, including Lima and the north of the country, in addition to convincingly winning the foreign vote throughout the five continents.
First line, background
Keiko Fujimori’s rise to power is the turning point of a personal and political career marked by precocity and controversy. It has always been on the front line, but also in the background, close to power but without exercising it.
In 1994, at only 19 years old and while studying in the United States, she accepted her father’s proposal to become the first lady of the Republic, after the turbulent divorce of her parents and the serious accusations of her mother, Susana Higuchi, who publicly denounced having been tortured by state intelligence agents.
For six years, the young Keiko carried out official functions, living in a Government Palace that at the time was decorated in pink tones and assuming a role of social support for an authoritarian regime that collapsed in the year 2000 amid massive corruption scandals carried out by the intelligence advisor, the obscure Vladimiro Montesinos.
After the collapse of her father’s Executive, Fujimori daughter returned fully to the public arena in 2006, when she was elected the most voted congresswoman in the country. Since then, he dedicated himself to the task of founding and unifying the political and civil structure of Fujimori under the acronym Fuerza Popular.
Despite successive presidential defeats, he established himself as a key figure in the country’s politics, leading strong opposition groups in the Legislature that directly influenced the fall of presidents such as Kuczynski and Martín Vizcarra, and extending the influence of his political bloc to the Prosecutor’s Office, the Ombudsman’s Office and the Constitutional Court.
However, his career was also marred by prolonged legal battles, including periods of preventive detention under accusations of money laundering linked to the Odebrecht case, accusations from which he has been released on bail, after repeated judicial appeals. She was accused of being the alleged leader of an organization entrenched within her party, including crimes such as money laundering, criminal organization, obstruction of justice and false declaration in administrative proceedings. The prosecutor in the case even requested a sentence of up to 30 years in prison for her, for the alleged diversion of 1.2 million dollars from the Brazilian construction company’s box b to the Peruvian training. Last January, the trial was annulled due to errors in the process and will have to be repeated.
The cabinet puzzle and management challenges
Fujimori’s assumption of office, on July 28, the date on which he will replace interim president José María Balcázar, opens a new chapter full of challenges for a country that has had nine presidents in the course of a decade. Although Fuerza Popular will have the largest benches in both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, the president-elect lacks an absolute majority, which will force her to forge immediate legislative coalitions. And, given the national polarization, it does not seem like an easy task.
Political analysts and various civil sectors consulted by the local newspaper The Commerce They point out that the absolute priority of the new Executive must focus on the economic reactivation of the country and the “relentless” fight against the rise of organized crime gangs, a scourge that has aggravated the perception of institutional insecurity.
To regain the confidence of the markets and calm tensions with the regions that voted massively against him, the election of his first ministerial cabinet will be crucial. Fujimori must resist the temptation to name a purely partisan team, they warn. Instead, the formation of a cabinet with a technical profile, with ministers with recognized experience and political independence, is emerging as an essential requirement to build bridges to the southern Andean region and project an image of international democratic stability.
And he has another challenge, of enormous sensitivity: that of separating himself from what his father, Alberto Fujimori, did, who governed the country from 1990 to 2000 and who in 2009 received five judicial sentences handed down by the Supreme Court of Justice of Peru. The main and most severe sentence was 25 years in prison for crimes against humanity (murder, serious injuries and aggravated kidnapping) during the massacres of Barrios Altos and La Cantuta, in addition to the kidnappings of journalist Gustavo Gorriti and businessman Samuel Dyer.
The then Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori and his daughter, Keiko, greet their supporters outside the Presidential Palace, on September 19, 2000, in Lima (Peru).
The new president has never stopped defending her father and even supported him in his attempt to return to Peru (he was between Chile and Japan, evading justice) as a candidate in the 2005 elections, just the year in which he was arrested. In 2011, her daughter acknowledged that she had made “mistakes,” but her criticism has not gotten any worse.
Now, according to the institutional calendar, the National Elections Jury (JNE) will proceed to the official proclamation of the final results on Friday, July 3. Subsequently, on July 15, President-elect Fujimori will receive her official credentials, culminating the process with the solemn presidential investiture before the national Parliament at the end of the month, beginning a mandate marked by the uncertainty of an extremely delicate governability.
