The right-wing candidate in the presidential election in Peru Keiko Fujimori appears Tuesday as the winner of the vote after having widened a lead over her left-wing rival Roberto Sanchez which can no longer be filled during the counting, according to the electoral authority.
With 99.86% of the minutes counted, Keiko Fujimori collected 50.12% of the votes against 49.88% for Roberto Sanchez, according to data published by the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE).
The daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori is ahead of her rival by more than 43,000 votes, out of more than 19 million votes counted. There remain 131 minutes to count, representing approximately 39,300 votes, an insufficient number to allow Roberto Sanchez to catch up.
One of the closest votes
Roberto Sanchez declared that he would not recognize a possible government of Keiko Fujimori and assured that there had been a “serious attack on the electoral process”, in particular during the vote abroad. Administrative irregularities and in the conservation of electoral materials would, according to him, have affected the vote abroad, which represents around 300,000 votes and largely benefited his rival. According to him, excluding votes cast outside the country, he would have a lead of around 25,000 votes over Keiko Fujimori.
The right-wing candidate’s party, Fuerza Popular, indicated that it would wait for the complete count before proclaiming itself the winner. A European Union mission assessed that the second round took place in a “calm and orderly” manner, in the context of a highly polarized campaign.
The second round of June 7 gave rise to one of the closest votes in recent Latin American history. The two candidates successively led the count before Keiko Fujimori gradually took the advantage.
The election was particularly anticipated in a country marked by strong political instability. Since 2016, eight presidents have succeeded one another at the head of Peru, against a backdrop of repeated institutional crises.
