General elections were held in Peru from 12 to 13 April 2026 to elect the president, vice presidents, and the Congress of the Republic of Peru. As no presidential candidate achieved a majority of votes in the first round, a runoff election was held on 7 June. In the second round, the leader of the Popular Force, Keiko Fujimori, defeated Together for Peru nominee Roberto Sánchez. The congressional elections determined the composition of the Congress of Peru, which returned to being a bicameral legislature with a Senate (the first since the 1990 election) and a Chamber of Deputies.
The elections come after proposals to hold them earlier due to the 2022–2023 Peruvian protests were rejected. In the first round, Fujimori, a far-right politician, placed first. Sánchez, a left-wing psychologist and politician, placed second, narrowly surpassing far-right businessman Rafael López Aliaga. Due to delays in various polling stations, election authorities extended voting by one day for voters unable to cast their ballots. Following Sánchez's rise in votes later in the tabulation process, López Aliaga reportedly began a disinformation campaign against electoral authorities, accusing the vote-counting process of being fraudulent. Electoral observers from the European Union and Peruvian authorities denied that voting irregularities took place. It was noted that a fringe segment of the Peruvian public believed that the election of Keiko Fujimori (who was born and raised in Peru, as were both of her parents) was a conspiracy concocted by the Japanese government to subjugate Peru and bring it under Japanese influence as a puppet state. López Aliaga faces potential criminal charges related to an alleged incitement of civil disorder after calling for an insurgency. The National Jury of Elections (JNE) ruled that it would not annul the first round of elections and that the runoff election would take place on the scheduled date of 7 June 2026.
One week prior to the 7 June election, electoral authorities suspended the use of a ballot scanning system for international votes, instead choosing to have election material physically transported from foreign consulates to be processed in Peru. While the head of the Organization of American States election monitoring delegation raised some concern about the move, the inter-American body said that the second round proceeded without significant irregularities. After Sánchez initially secured the majority of domestic votes, which were processed first, foreign votes that were largely supportive of Fujimori arrived to be counted in Peru, giving her the lead in the election. Following the modification in foreign vote counting and Fujimori gaining the lead, Sánchez called for foreign ballots to be nullified, saying that irregularities occurred in the process. By late June, international media projected Fujimori's victory. The JNE had counted all votes by 29 June 2026, with Fujimori holding about 50,000 more votes than Sánchez, certifying Fujimori as the election winner.
Background
The election was held after a prolonged period of political instability that began well before the current electoral cycle. During the presidencies of Ollanta Humala, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Martín Vizcarra, the Congress was dominated by the opposition Popular Force, the party created by Keiko Fujimori (daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori), and voted to block many of the actions performed by the presidents. Fujimorists in Congress "earned a reputation as hardline obstructionists for blocking initiatives popular with Peruvians aimed at curbing the nation's rampant corruption" according to the Associated Press and since the 2016 Peruvian general election, Popular Force held control of the nation's legislature. During this period, the Fujimorist-led Congress used constitutional hardball against the executive and removed multiple presidents from office, with members of Congress also creating laws that benefitted organized crime while simultaneously obstructing the functions of law enforcement.
Following the 2021 Peruvian general election, right-wing parties, including Avanza País and Popular Renewal, gained control of Congress. After left-wing presidential candidate Pedro Castillo won the presidency, Fujimori and her supporters said electoral fraud had occurred, leading obstructionist efforts to overturn the election with support of citizens in Lima. Many business groups and politicians refused to recognize Castillo's ascent to the presidency, along with those among the more affluent, including former military officers and wealthy families. They demanded new elections, promoted calls for a military coup, and used rhetoric to support their allegations of fraud. From the beginning of his presidency, Castillo was targeted by members of Congress, who made it clear that they wanted to remove him from office by impeachment.
Due to broadly interpreted impeachment wording in the 1993 Constitution of Peru, Congress can impeach the president on the vague grounds of "moral incapacity", effectively making the legislative branch more powerful than the executive branch. Congress, which had already attempted to impeach Castillo twice, began a third process of impeachment in late 2022. On 7 December 2022, Castillo attempted a self-coup, dissolving Congress as well as the Judiciary bodies, imposing a curfew, and establishing an emergency government. He was arguing that the legislative body, which had obstructed many of his policies, was serving oligopolistic businesses and had colluded with the Constitutional Court of Peru to undermine the executive branch, thereby creating a "congressional dictatorship". The move was rejected by state institutions; he was removed from office and arrested. Two months after Castillo was removed, Congress would obtain nearly absolute control of Peru's government when the Constitutional Court, whose members were directly chosen by Congress, removed judicial oversight of the legislative body.
Castillo's vice president, Dina Boluarte, assumed the presidency amid the widespread protests against her government. Following her ascension to the presidency, Boluarte aligned herself with the far right-wing majority in Congress. She was described by analysts as authoritarian due to her crackdown on demonstrations, with human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the National Coordinator for Human Rights criticizing her administration's response, especially after the Ayacucho and Juliaca massacres. Although proposals were repeatedly introduced to bring forward the scheduled 2026 vote, they were rejected by Boluarte and Congress. In October 2025, Boluarte was removed from office by Congress on "permanent moral incapacity" grounds amid mounting public anger over insecurity and corruption allegations.
In his position in the order of succession, president of Congress José Jerí succeeded Boluarte, initially assumed the presidency leading into the 2026 elections. Jerí became Peru's seventh president in nine years. However, in February 2026, José Jerí was removed from office by Congress for holding undisclosed meetings with Zhihua Yang, a Chinese businessman under scrutiny from the Peruvian government. He was succeeded by José María Balcázar, who was elected by Congress to serve as president of Congress and thus made president of Peru.
The elections have taken shape amid heightened public concern over national security, public safety, organized crime, persistent distrust in political institutions, and ongoing debates about corruption and economic governance. Concerns about the power Congress held over the executive and judiciary branches were also noted by observers, with Will Freeman of the Council on Foreign Relations warning that Congress was attempting to build a "mafia state" in the run-up to the elections. Similarly, Human Rights Watch warned of democratic backsliding occurring, with director of the Americas division, Juanita Goebertus Estrada, stating that "Congress has taken steps to undermine the independence and capacity of courts, prosecutors, and key government institutions" and that "[as] Congress goes unchecked, many Peruvians point to its role in weakening the rule of law as the reason for the expansion of organized crime in the country."
A return to a bicameral legislative system was also established by Congress, overruling the 2018 constitutional referendum where voters voted to maintain a unicameral system, which includes 130 seats for deputies and 60 seats for senators. Congress also reversed the decision of voters who chose in the 2018 referendum to prohibit officeholders from being re-elected. Deputies serve in the lower house, tasked with presenting legislative bills and providing oversight of the Cabinet of Peru, having more responsibility over political objectives. Senators represent the upper house and hold more institutional control; they review bills presented by deputies and are responsible for electing the directors of the Central Reserve Bank of Peru, the members of the Constitutional Court, the Comptroller General, Ombudsman of Peru and other institutional leaders. Upper house senators also hold the power to approve certain functions of the executive, such as foreign travel, and the ability to remove the president. The president also cannot dissolve the upper house of Congress, granting that body a large amount of power.
Since 2025, The Economist has described Peru's political system as "hybrid", and according to the V-Dem Institute, it is "in the process of becoming autocratic".
Electoral system
President
The president is elected using the two-round system. The first round of voting allows eligible voters to vote for any viable presidential candidate. The top two candidates who receive a plurality of the vote proceed to the run-off election. The winner of the run-off election and the presidential election is the candidate who receives a plurality of the popular vote. However, if in the first round the candidate who is in the first place already gets more than 50% of the popular vote, that candidate will automatically win the election and a run-off election will no longer be needed.
Congress and Andean Parliament
The 130 members of the Chamber of Deputies are elected in 27 multi-member constituencies using open list proportional representation. Seats are allocated using the D'Hondt method. The 60 senators are elected through two systems, with 30 elected in a single nationwide constituency through proportional representation and 30 elected from the 27 constituencies used for the Chamber of Deputies, with Lima province electing four senators and the other 26 constituencies electing one each. Peru has five seats in the Andean Parliament, which are elected using a common constituency by open list proportional representation.
Threshold
To gain seats in each chamber, parties must both reach a 5% electoral threshold of valid votes for the chamber at the national level and also qualify for at least 5% of the number of seats of the respective chamber (7 for the chamber of deputies and 3 for the senate). For the senate, the combined vote total for the district and national list senators is used when checking whether a party has reached the threshold.
Presidential candidates
A record number of presidential candidates participated in the first round of elections, with 36 individuals appearing on the initial ballot on 12 and 13 April 2026. The first round ballot itself measured 16.5 inches (42 cm) by 17.3 inches (44 cm), and was described as being the size of a pizza box. Napoleón Becerra of the Workers and Entrepreneurs Party appeared on first round ballots despite dying in a car accident on 15 March 2026, since they had already been printed.
The remaining two candidates who went to the run-off election, Keiko Fujimori and Roberto Sánchez, appeared on the second round ballot.
Campaign
The primary concerns among voters in the election were corruption and crime, though with extortion and homicides increasing greatly since the previous election, security became the main concern for voters.
First round
Campaign issues
Extortion crimes increased 1,000% between 2023 and 2025, with gangs targeting schools, small businesses and transportation workers, killing workers who refuse to pay protection payments. Between 2019 and 2024, the national homicide rate grew 200% and in 2025, about 33% of people reported knowing someone affected by extortion. Over 500 schools in Peru faced extortion, 325 were closed due to threats and in some instances, schools began accounting for extortion payments in their budgets. In 2025, over 50 transportation drivers in Lima and surrounding areas were murdered, reportedly related to extortion conflicts. According to experts, the causes of the increase of crime include economic difficulties following the COVID-19 pandemic, the political crisis in Peru, the expansion of foreign gangs, and corrupt or bribed police cooperating with gangs. States of emergencies were declared and troops were deployed onto streets, though this resulted in no change in crime rates. In a notable event, the Círculo Militar de Chorrillos shooting occurred when a gang attempting to extort the cumbia band Agua Marina fired their guns at the band while on stage on 8 October 2025, with the shooting leading to the impeachment of Dina Boluarte as some argued her crime prevention policies being ineffective.
The growth of crime resulted in extreme positions by some political candidates. Front-runner Keiko Fujimori proposed having those incarcerated perform jobs in order to eat, stating "We will force prisoners to work for their food". Carlos Álvarez described himself as "the Peruvian Bukele", and said that if in office, he would designate all criminals as military targets subject to death if they did not surrender, saying "to hell with the human rights of criminals". Rafael Lopez Aliaga proposed capturing criminals, helicoptering them into prisons in the Amazon rainforest and having the jails surrounded by South American bushmaster vipers. Lopez Aliaga also proposed greater cooperation with the United States on crime, approving American troops to apprehend criminals in Peru and sending prisoners to the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador.