In the highly polarized South American country, conservative candidate Keiko Fujimori has been declared the winner of Peru’s presidential election after weeks of vote counting.
The country’s election authority confirmed on Friday that Fujimori, the eldest daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori, won the June 7 run-off after unsuccessfully running for president in 2011, 2016 and 2021.
In a post on X after making the official declaration, Fujimori thanked voters for their support and said Peru was entering a “new chapter.” She vowed to lead the transition with “responsibility, humility and a deep sense of duty.”
The announcement came days after Peru’s National Elections Secretariat announced the final vote count, showing that its Popular Power party defeated left-wing candidate Roberto Sánchez (Together for Peru) by just 49,641 votes out of some 18 million votes cast, with 50.13% of valid votes cast to Sánchez’s 49.86%.
Mr. Fujimori, 51, will be sworn in as president on July 28 and will serve a five-year term alongside First Vice President Luis Fernando Galarreta and Second Vice President Miguel Ángel Torres Morales.
She becomes Peru’s ninth president in a decade, following a period of political instability that often dates back to the presidency of her father, who was ousted in 2000 and later convicted of corruption, embezzlement and human rights abuses. Even after a controversial pardon in 2023, its legacy remains deeply divisive in the country.
The result is expected to change Peru’s political landscape after the country’s closest presidential election in recent years.
Sanchez has previously said he does not approve of Fujimori’s government. After the final vote count was announced, he said he would appeal to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), alleging fraud in overseas voting.
In declaring victory for Fujimori on Friday, Peru’s National Electoral Jury rejected Together for Peru’s complaint, saying its investigation found no such discrepancies in the votes.
