Peru Presidential Election: A Race Among Latin America's Closest Since 1990

Peru is awaiting the final results of its presidential election runoff, a contest that has become one of the most tightly contested in Latin America since 1990. The race pits conservative candidate Keiko Fujimori against leftist contender Roberto Sánchez.

As of Sunday afternoon, with more than 19 million ballots counted, Fujimori held a narrow lead of just 18,478 votes, according to the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE). With over 98.5% of votes tallied, the difference stood at a mere 0.10 percentage points. If this margin holds, it would rank among the most closely fought presidential elections in the region since 1990.

This narrow margin surpasses the differences seen in Peru's own runoffs in 2016 (0.24 points) and 2021 (0.25 points), as well as El Salvador's 2014 election (0.25 points). Data compiled by the WZB Berlin Social Science Center and analyzed by AFP indicates that such close results are rare across approximately 150 elections held in 18 Latin American countries.

Previous close elections in the region include Costa Rica in 2006, where Óscar Arias Sánchez won by 18,200 votes, and the Dominican Republic in 1994, with a 22,300-vote difference. More recently, Honduras's 2025 election saw a victory by just 26,300 ballots. In Peru, a country with a significantly larger population, Fujimori's previous defeats in 2016 and 2021 were decided by approximately 41,000 and 44,000 votes, respectively.

The winner of this election will become Peru's ninth president in a decade, underscoring a period of significant political turnover and instability in the country. The final proclamation of the next president is expected by mid-July.