Peru Elects 2026: Ongoing Coverage of the Presidential Race

The dates: April 12 first round, June 7 runoff, July 28 inauguration 
The details: A candidate needs more than 50 percent of the vote to win outright in the first round. Otherwise, the top two candidates advance to a runoff where an absolute majority wins. A presidential term lasts five years. Reelection is allowed but not consecutively. 
The winner will replace interim President José María Balcázar, who entered office on February 18 as Peru’s ninth president in 10 years. 
Turnout: Turnout averages 81 percent, but was 70 percent in the 2021 first round. 
The voters: 27.3 million; Peruvians living abroad can vote.

There are 35 contenders battling for Peru’s presidency.

Once again among the leading candidates is former congresswoman Keiko Fujimori (2006–2011),  who is on her fourth presidential campaign, having lost the last three runoffs. The daughter of ex-President Alberto Fujimori (1990–2000), she has held sway in Peru’s Congress even out of office through her leadership within the socially conservative People’s Force party. 

Also running on the right is comedian Carlos Álvarez of the Country for All party, as well as businessman and ex-Mayor of Lima Rafael “Porky” López Aliaga (2023–2025) of the Popular Renewal party (RP). 

Among the leftist candidates is former Lima mayor, 80-year-old Ricardo Belmont (1990–1995) of the Civic Works party. Belmont is a socially conservative media company owner who almost served as an advisor to ex-President Pedro Castillo in 2021. The imprisoned Castillo has endorsed congressman Roberto Sánchez of Together for Peru, who was his foreign trade and tourism minister. Another notable candidate is former Central Bank Director Alfonso López-Chau Nava (2006–2012) of the Now Nation party.

• What happened: Peru has an extra day of voting at a dozen polling stations in Lima that did not open on election day, affecting over 55,000 of Peru’s 27.3 million-strong electorate.
• Why it mattered: Major presidential candidates accused the national electoral agency of fraud as quick counts showed a tight race for the runoff against Keiko Fujimori.
• What to watch next: All voting ends at 6 pm local time on April 13, by which time there could be a clearer indication of which two presidential candidates advance to the June 7 runoff.

Over 55,000 Peruvian voters could not cast a ballot on April 12 because their polling station did not receive election materials in time to open. The result? Peru's national electoral tribunal made the unprecedented decision to extend voting by an extra day at the polling stations that remained closed on election Sunday. The order applies to 13 voting sites in Lima, as well as a few polling stations at Peruvian consulates in the U.S. cities of Paterson, NJ, and Orlando, FL, where there were staffing issues. 

ONPE, the government agency that organizes elections, blamed the private company hired to transport election materials for Sunday’s logistical challenges that forced the agency to push the deadline to open polling stations from 12 to 2 pm and extend voting an extra hour to 6 pm. ONPE announced it would take charge of delivering election materials on Monday. The head of ONPE stressed that these issues did not constitute electoral fraud and a statement from the Organization of American States electoral observation mission expressed support for the decision to allow voting on Monday, adding that apart from delays, voting had been “peaceful and orderly.” 

Major candidates including Keiko Fujimori and Jorge Nieto expressed concerns about disruptions to the voting process. Others, such as Rafael López Aliaga and Ricardo Belmont, alleged that election fraud was underway.  Quick counts released by polling firms Datum and Ipsos on April 13 show that less than 3 percentage points may separate the four candidates behind Fujimori, who include López Aliaga, Belmont, Nieto, and Roberto Sánchez. 

In the week leading up to Peru’s April 12 elections, pollsters are legally barred from releasing voter intention data. But that also happens to be when around a third of the country’s 27.3 million voters are likely to make their decision.  

“We have 14 percent of people saying that they decide the same day as the election,” said Urpi Torrado, CEO of polling firm Datum, “Even the candidate with the highest voting intention doesn't have 14 percent. So 14 percent deciding the day of the elections can change everything.”  

In this interview, Torrado covers the challenges of polling across Peru’s diverse geography and population, late surges in candidate popularity, and why there might be a high percentage of invalid ballots.

AS/COA Online: There are a record 35 candidates competing to be president and five elections happening on April 12. Voters have a very large ballot to fill out! What challenges does that present for you as a pollster?

Urpi Torrado: The challenge, more than the ballot, is the country. Peru is divided into five different regions. One is Lima, the capital city, and then we have north, the jungle, the highlands, and the south of the country. And each region has its own challenges...

Read the full Q&A with Torrado, the head of one of Peru's top pollsters.

• What happened: Candidates addressed crime and corruption, top voter concerns, in the first round of a marathon debate schedule.
• Why it mattered: A notable debate performance could help a candidate emerge from the crowded field trailing frontrunners Keiko Fujimori and Rafael López Aliaga.
• What to watch next: Economy and education will feature as the focus of the second round of debates from March 30 to April 1. 

With 35 candidates in the running for president, Peruvians wanting to hear from all their options must sit through at least 15 hours of debate spread across two three-day blocks. A random draw determined the split of the candidates into groups of 11 or 12 that meet on the debate stage each day. These are then further divided into four groups of three who directly debate each other on the topic at hand. 

¡Llega el gran ciclo de Debates Presidenciales!

Los candidatos a la Presidencia de la República se encuentran frente a frente para exponer sus planes de gobierno. Es el momento de escuchar, contrastar y decidir.

📍Anota las fechas:

📅Primera jornada: 23, 24 y 25 de marzo. pic.twitter.com/bs8SWl4cKw

— JNE Perú (@JNE_Peru) March 17, 2026

The first thematic block of debates, from March 23 to 25, tackled the two top voter worries: crime and corruption. But concrete proposals were scant as candidates spent much of their allotted time exchanging insults and accusations.  

Keiko Fujimori was a popular target. Participating on the last day of the first block, her competitors brought up corruption cases connected to the authoritarian administration of her father, ex-President Alberto Fujimori, for whom she served as first lady. And as head of the Popular Force party that leads a right-wing bloc in Congress, they also blamed her for a decade of political turbulence in which impeachment proceedings have truncated the terms of five presidents.

The other frontrunner, Rafael López Aliaga, came under fire for being the subject of multiple investigations into possible crimes committed during his time as Lima’s mayor. Most recently, Peru’s public ministry opened a case earlier this month into whether he illegally issued municipal bonds worth more than $1.1 billion.  

In terms of actual policy proposals, candidates spoke of the need to for more police funding, as well as better technology, to combat rising rates of extortions and violent crimes. Candidates, including López Aliaga and comedian Carlos Álvarez, also suggested that Peru withdraw from the Inter-American human rights system in order to reinstate the death penalty. Fujimori proposed bringing back masked judges in courtrooms, as was done under her father’s government, an idea also supported by López Aliaga.   

Peru’s 2026 election will operate at an unprecedented scale. From the historic number of presidential candidates to an electorate that has grown by 65 percent over twenty years, the April 12 elections are already breaking records.

AS/COA Online highlights a few key facts and figures to shed insight into who’s voting, what they’re voting for, and what’s top of mind for voters when they cast ballots. 

17.3 X 16.5 inches. Those are the dimensions of the largest ballots that will be cast in this year’s general elections...

Get all the numbers here.