Keiko Fujimori and Roberto Sánchez faced off in the second round of Peru's presidential election on June 7th; final results are not yet in. Photo from social media.
By La Línea – Jun 23, 2026
Sunday, June 7, 2026, 9:00 pm: A cry of joy shook the headquarters of the Juntos por el Perú party in downtown Lima. The results of quick counts by pollsters Ipsos and Datum unanimously confirmed the victory of Roberto Sánchez by a narrow margin of 0.6%. For thousands of citizens, Keiko Fujimori’s electoral defeat—her fourth—signaled the end of a cycle of high political tension and repression, intensified since the coup against former president Pedro Castillo.
These general elections in Peru were not held under conditions of a healthy democracy. On the contrary, the electoral landscape had been rigged beforehand by the coup-making and mafia coalition that, since December 7, 2022, captured the branches of state power. Months before the election, candidates outside the political establishment were disqualified—among them former presidents Martín Vizcarra and Pedro Castillo.
Furthermore, taking advantage of the political system’s parliamentary drift, parties with dominance in Congress—such as the right-wing Fuerza Popular and Alianza Para el Progreso—moved to capture electoral institutions, always with the blessing of unelected puppet presidents such as Dina Boluarte, José Jerí, and José María Balcazar.
As part of this strategy to seize institutional control, the coup coalition consolidated its influence over the National Justice Board (JNJ), the body responsible for appointing members of the National Elections Jury (JNE). In a swift resolution, the JNJ named José Burneo as JNE president—a designation severely questioned due to his alleged ties to the right-wing parliamentary majority.
Institutional tensions escalated in April 2026, during the counting of the ballots in the first round, when the head of the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE), Piero Corvetto, resigned following repeated fraud accusations made by far-right candidate Rafael López Aliaga.
Despite this tainted landscape, the forces of the progressive movements managed to coalesce around the candidacy of Roberto Sánchez. With the entire establishment against him, Sánchez had real chances of winning. When the quick count figures were announced, the campaign team erupted in embraces, congratulations, and victory chants. In an atmosphere of relief, everyone went to sleep without knowing that the results would be reversed in the coming hours.
Saturating public opinion: media machinery and troll armies
Undoubtedly, a key factor in reducing the margin of Sánchez’s victory was the influencing of public opinion by mainstream, corporate media. During the electoral process and especially during the runoff, the informational bias against Roberto Sánchez was blatant.
The central message from television and press business groups was to present the candidate supported by Pedro Castillo as a communist threat who would destabilize the country, linking Sánchez’s party to the terrorism of armed groups from the 1990s—Sendero Luminoso and the MRTA —or to the radicalism of Antauro Humala. In contrast, Keiko Fujimori was presented as the candidate of order, who would follow the path of economic growth and take a firm hand against problems such as crime.
The informational bombardment was such that the European Union Electoral Observation Mission (EU-EOM) concluded that the majority of private national media showed a marked bias and unequal coverage—favorable toward Keiko Fujimori and systematically negative toward Roberto Sánchez. Its monitoring determined that this behavior affected the right to an informed vote. Specifically, it identified a coverage imbalance in which 70% of content broadcast on private media had a negative tone toward Roberto Sánchez, while coverage of Keiko Fujimori was 96% neutral or positive.
Another front for informational influence was social media—particularly the international troll army deployed by Fujimori’s campaign. According to the portal El Foco, during the runoff, a web of anonymous accounts operated from the United States, Ecuador, Mexico, and Venezuela, campaigning in favor of Keiko Fujimori and attacking Roberto Sánchez.
At least five international companies were involved in promoting Keiko Fujimori and sabotaging Roberto Sánchez, investing at least US $200,000 in social media and decisively helping the Fuerza Popular candidate win the presidential election.
The pollsters played their own role in the disinformation battle. On Sunday, June 7, Ipsos and Datum released their quick count results showing Roberto Sánchez as the winner. In the case of Ipsos, its quick count was conducted jointly with the NGO Transparency International and the National Democratic Institute, linked to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and has not been wrong since 2001.
Strangely, early on June 8, Ipsos director Alfredo Torres himself violated the contractual confidentiality norm with his funders and appeared on television claiming that his count had been mistaken and that, under new statistical results that better evaluated the overseas Peruvian vote, Keiko had a higher probability of winning.
Just two days after the election, the media and social media networks began to construct the narrative that Fujimori would win thanks to votes from abroad. And so the plan continued.
Fraud in the overseas Peruvian vote
The irregularities in the Peruvian election that constitute fraud relate primarily to the votes of Peruvians living abroad.
The overseas Peruvian vote is managed by the Foreign Ministry, not the electoral bodies, making the role of the foreign minister and consuls critical. In this regard, it is notable that on April 24, 2026, acting president José Balcazar—pressured by Fujimorismo and right-wing forces—appointed Carlos Pareja as foreign minister. This diplomat, known for his ideological affinity with Fuerza Popular and the Latin American far right, would become the key figure in the manipulation of the overseas vote.
Just one week before the runoff, at the new foreign minister’s request, ONPE issued a directive changing the rules for voting outside the country. Among the most controversial changes, the new regulation ordered that the voting tallies not be digitized and sent immediately to the electoral body in Lima but, instead, be physically transported and processed within Peru.
On election day, multiple complaints were reported at overseas voting centers: the merging of voting tables, electioneering in favor of Keiko Fujimori, consular partiality, and vote substitution. In countries with large electoral populations, such as Argentina, the foreign ministry scandalously delayed the transfer of tallies so that they arrived at or beyond the legal deadline for observation or challenge.
Voting centers in many countries turned out to be territory controlled by the Fujimori machine. If Roberto Sánchez won within Peru, it was also thanks to accredited party representatives who participated in defending the vote. In contrast, overseas, Juntos por el Perú lacked a comparable presence.
These coordinated moves between the branches of state and Fuerza Popular have managed to reverse the result and silence the initial victory cries of Juntos por el Perú. From that point on, the final result ceased to be a product of citizens’ votes and became a legal battle—and on this terrain, JP is fighting at a disadvantage.
On one hand, the electoral, judicial, and constitutional powers have been appointed or co-opted by Fujimori and her supporters. On the other, challenging results costs money, and JP lacks sufficient resources of its own.
To raise funds, Roberto Sánchez issued a call for national solidarity and managed to gather part of the sum needed to challenge voting tables in Lima and the United States where irregularities were reported. However, after collecting the US $210,000 required to challenge these tables, the JNE dismissed Juntos por el Perú’s request in record time.
To date, the electoral authority has announced that final results will be ready by mid-July, just days before the new president is to be sworn in—which by constitutional mandate must take place on July 28.
Juntos por el Perú has called for demonstrations to defend the vote and has made recognition of the result conditional on clarification of the complaints regarding the transparency of overseas votes. To date, neither the Foreign Ministry nor the electoral authority has provided a conclusive response that could dispel the doubts and ensure the legitimacy of Peru’s next president.
Peru Presidential Elections: Fujimori Leads by Minimal Margin, Sánchez Demands Recount
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/CB/SL
Cameron Baillie is an award-winning journalist, editor, and researcher. He won and was shortlisted for awards across Britain and Ireland. He is Editor-in-Chief of New Sociological Perspectives graduate journal and Commissioning Editor at The Student Intifada newsletter. He spent the first half of 2025 living, working, and writing in Ecuador. He does news translation and proofreading work with The Orinoco Tribune.
