In the second round, Keiko Fujimori is headed for victory, leading by over 43,000 votes. Roberto Sánchez questions the result.
In the second round of the presidential elections in Peru, the conservative candidate Keiko Fujimori gained an unattainable lead over her opponent after the majority of the votes were counted on Tuesday. This was stated by the National Office for Electoral Processes (ONPE), TASR informs, according to an AFP report.
After counting 99.86 percent of the votes cast, Fujimori has 50.12 percent of the votes. This represents a lead of just over 43,000 votes over her leftist rival Roberto Sánchez, with only around 39,300 votes left to count.
Sánchez will not recognize the victory
Sánchez has already declared that he will not recognize Fujimori’s victory and pointed to administrative irregularities in the processing of 300,000 ballots from abroad.
Fujimori was supported by a large part of foreign voters, especially in the United States and Japan. In the meantime, her party said that it would wait until the counting of votes was completed to officially announce the victory.
Fujimori reached the second round of the presidential election for the fourth time in a row and lost the last two elections by only fractions of a percentage. In 2021, Pedro Castillo defeated her by approximately 45,000 votes.
Many voters hope the election will end a period of political chaos that has led to the imprisonment, impeachment and impeachment of several presidents – the new president will be the ninth in a row in a decade. However, the country is deeply divided between the densely populated coast and the rural and indigenous south. The newly elected president will take office on July 28 for five years.
