Peru presidential race is Latin America's tightest since 1990

Peru is witnessing one of the tightest presidential elections in Latin America since 1990, as conservative candidate Keiko Fujimori and left-wing hopeful Roberto Sánchez are locked in an extremely close race. Official results from the National Electoral Processes Office (ONPE) show Fujimori with a razor-thin lead of just 18,478 votes after more than 98.5% of ballots were tallied.

The minuscule 0.10 percentage point difference positions this runoff as one of the most fiercely contested in the region's contemporary history. An AFP analysis indicates that if this trend holds, it would surpass the narrow margins seen in Peru's own 2016 and 2021 runoffs, as well as El Salvador's 2014 presidential election, which had a 0.25-point gap.

Historical data, compiled by the WZB Berlin Social Science Center and supplemented by AFP, reveals other close elections in the region. El Salvador in 2014 saw the narrowest vote difference with Salvador Sánchez Cerén winning by 7,400 votes. Costa Rica in 2006 had an 18,200-vote margin, and the Dominican Republic in 1994 was decided by 22,300 votes. Honduras's 2025 election had a 26,300-vote difference.

However, Peru's electoral context is significant due to its larger voter population, which is three to six times greater than the Central American and Caribbean nations mentioned. Previous defeats for Keiko Fujimori were by considerably larger margins, including a loss of about 41,000 votes in 2016.