More than a week after casting their votes in the first round, Peruvians still do not know who are the candidates who will advance to the second and decisive round of the presidential elections in their country.
The count has not yet concluded and uncertainty is maximum in a vote marked by equality between the candidates who aspire to compete with the conservative Keiko Fujimori, who is emerging as the candidate with the most votes in the count.
With 93.8% of the votes counted, the Fuerza Standard candidate obtained 17% of the votes and, barring a big last-minute surprise, will be in the runoff.
But in second place, the leftist Roberto Sánchez, with 12% of the votes, leads the ultraconservative Rafael López Aliaga by just 15,000 votes, less than one percentage point.
The race between the two is critical, since the candidate who comes in second place will be the one who goes to the final runoff to win the presidency.
Several incidents in the development of the vote and the delay in the final results have fueled criticism of the electoral authorities in Peru in recent weeks and soured the political climate.
The National Elections Jury (JNE) warned that the final results of the first round could be delayed until mid-May.
The highest electoral court also filed a complaint with the Prosecutor’s Office against Piero Corvetto, head of the National Office of Electoral Processes, for the logistical failures that prevented the opening of several schools in the metropolitan area of Lima on election Sunday, and various political sectors, as well as several media outlets, demand Corvetto’s resignation from office.
And López Aliaga denounced “an electoral fraud unique in the world”, asked that the elections be annulled and called on his followers to protest.
The slowness in the count and the publication of the final results contrasts with what is routine in other countries, but in Peru there is precedent.
In 2021, we had to wait several weeks for Pedro Castillo to finally be proclaimed the winner of the vote that pitted him against Keiko Fujimori in the second round.
There are several reasons that explain why there are still no results and why they may take even longer to arrive.
The problems in Lima
The incidents began on the same day of the election, when 15 schools in Metropolitan Lima could not set up their tables because the electoral materials had not arrived.
As a result, approximately 60,000 people were unable to vote, forcing the JNE to order that the affected polling stations open their doors on Monday so that citizens could exercise their right to vote.
Despite the extraordinary voting day enabled by the JNE, some of the parties that have the bulk of their support in Lima, such as López Aliaga’s Renovación Standard, began to complain from that moment because, they said, they had been harmed.
A very complex choice
Experts point out that the complexity of the electoral process derived from the 2024 constitutional reform has greatly complicated the counting of votes and, above all, the resolution of observations and challenges presented by the parties.
Peruvians had to elect candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency, for the Senate in a national and regional constituency, for deputies, and for the Andean Parliament.
The European Union Electoral Observation Mission said in its preliminary report that “these general elections were the most complex in the recent history of the Republic of Peru” and “were carried out in a reformed legal framework that posed numerous challenges for both voters and the electoral administration.”
“It has been such a complex election that we could actually say that there have been five elections in one,” José Tello, former Minister of Justice of Peru and expert in electoral law at the Aklla Institute, a think tank, told BBC Mundo.
The ballot paper measured approximately 42 cm by 44 cm, contained five different elections and allowed voters to express up to 12 different options.
The large number of candidates (35 for the presidency alone) has complicated the count and, above all, seems to be further complicating the resolution of the minutes observed and the challenges.
“In many electoral centers, the counting took many hours, which caused delays and errors, sometimes due to the fatigue of the members of the polling stations,” says Tello.
Now is when the majority of the observed minutes are being processed, those in which the ONPE has detected errors of form or substance, such as in the sum of the votes, illegible or erroneous figures, or omission of necessary data or signatures.
These minutes are removed from the count until the Special Electoral Jury in their area – there are 60 throughout the country – reviews them and issues a resolution.
In addition, there are the minutes with contested votes, in which one of the representatives of the parties present at the tables questions the validity of a vote or the identity of a voter, – for example, because a cross falls out of the box or because it is suspected that the voter is not who they say they are.
“In Peru the parties have the habit of challenging many votes and we are seeing that there is too much bureaucracy in the process,” says Tello.
With such a close election, in which a few thousand votes can decide who goes to the second round, the parties seem determined to fight until the end.
In recent days the obstacle seems to be the slowness of the challenge phase of the process. Challenges are resolved by the Special Electoral Juries, but if the parties are not satisfied with the decision they can appeal to the National Election Jury. It is its five magistrates at its headquarters in Lima who have the last word.
Structural factors
Structural factors are added to the complexity of the right election and the incidents in Lima that have called into question the actions of the ONPE.
Peru is a very rural, mountainous and jungle country in which many citizens live in small communities and isolated areas.
With an electoral system based on physical documents and little digitized, transportation difficulties do not contribute to rapid processing of the records either.
And many Peruvians live abroad; The transportation and processing of electoral records from abroad also takes longer.
Thus, the 2026 elections are not the first elections in which we have to wait weeks to know the results.
In 2021, Pedro Castillo had to wait until July 19 to be officially proclaimed the winner, almost a month and a half after the second round had been held.
Then, the thousands of annulment requests presented by the Fuerza Standard party, led by candidate Keiko Fujimori, forced the JNE to review case by case in public hearings, which delayed the final result for weeks.
And in the first round of 2006, the fight between former president Alan García and the conservative Lourdes Flores Nano to advance to the second round was not decided until two weeks later, when all the observations and challenges were resolved and García managed to advance to the runoff by a minimal margin and, finally, return to power.
Doubts about the process
The incidents in Lima, the allegations without evidence of fraud by López Aliaga and the slowness in confirming the results have fueled doubts about the cleanliness of the elections.
“It is a very close election and there is great discredit for everything that happened, especially in Lima,” says Tello.
However, he says that “there have been irregularities, but there has been no fraud.”
The head of the European Union Electoral Observation Mission, Annalisa Corrado, said on the day of the vote that European observers had noted “delays, but in a fairly calm climate and without irregularities.”
The European Mission concluded in its preliminary report on the Peruvian elections that “the scrutiny carried out by the polling station members was considered generally transparent and well-intentioned, although it was affected by the complexity of the procedures and the insufficient preparation of the staff.”
It seems that Peruvians will have to wait even longer to find out who advances to the second round.
In the context of distrust towards politicians and institutions – which surveys have detected for some time – the risk is that the delay and allegations of fraud without evidence will aggravate citizen indifference in a republic that elects what will be its ninth president in ten years.
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