Peru's electoral board confirms June 7 presidential runoff with Fujimori and Sanchez

LIMA: Peruvian electoral authorities confirmed on Sunday that the official results of the first round of the presidential elections in early April, with Keiko Fujimori and Roberto Sanchez advancing to the runoff on June 7.

The final vote count was released on Friday, but it had to be confirmed by Peru's National Elections Board to set the second round as none of the candidates received more than half the valid votes.

The 50-year-old congresswoman Fujimori, the daughter of the late President Alberto Fujimori and candidate for Fuerza Popular, gathered 2.8 million votes, or 17.19% of the total. She reached a presidential runoff for the fourth time.

Sanchez, of Juntos por el Peru party and a former foreign trade minister under former President Pedro Castillo, got 2.015 million votes, or 12.03%.

Both beat 33 other candidates with promises to put an end to surging crime, the top priority for Peruvians whose country's mining-driven economy has proved resilient to political instability.

More than 70% of voters did not chose either Fujimori or Sanchez in the first round, meaning both candidates will have to form coalitions if they hope to win in the runoff.

Peru has been embroiled in a long political crisis that has seen eight presidents come and go in nearly a decade of clashes between Parliament and the executive branch, and protests that left 50 demonstrators dead between 2022 and 2023.