Peru has held elections for the ninth time in ten years: Fujimori vs. Sánchez

The results of the runoff election on June 7 will not be finalized for several days. The candidates for the presidency were Keiko Fujimori, a right-wing conservative from the Fuerza Popular (People’s Power) party, and Roberto Sánchez, a left-wing candidate from Juntos por el Perú (Together for Peru). In the first round of voting, Fujimori received 17 percent of the vote and Sánchez received 12 percent.

Keiko Fujimori sees herself as the successor to her father, Alberto Fujimori, who was elected president in 1990 but ruled the country as a dictator from 1992 to 2000 and restructured it according to neoliberal principles. “Her platform promises deregulation and tax breaks for businesses, a military presence on the streets, the deportation of migrants who have committed crimes, and the use of prisoners as forced laborers for road construction. Her social policy is limited to direct cash handouts and food vouchers rather than redistribution,” reports Steffen Heinzelmann in nd.

Psychologist Roberto Sánchez served as Minister of Foreign Trade and Tourism in the government of former left-wing President Pedro Castillo (2021–2022), who is currently in prison following a failed coup attempt. Like Castillo, Sánchez tends to represent the poorer rural population and has pledged, in the event of an election victory, to implement reforms of the police and the judiciary and to crack down on organized crime.

According to polls, 25 percent of the population remained undecided until the very end about whom to vote for. This is the ninth presidential election in ten years. Seven of the last eight presidents are “under house arrest, in prison, facing charges, or subject to a travel ban due to offenses ranging from an attempted coup to corruption and money laundering,” writes Sandra Weiss in a highly informative background report for IPG. Peru has a “deep-seated, structural problem with its political system,” and crime in Peru is “less an antagonist of politics” and more “an integral part of the political system.”