By Marco Aquino, Aida Pelaez-Fernandez and Leila Miller
LIMA, April 15 (Reuters) – Three candidates in Peru are vying to face right-winger Keiko Fujimori in a presidential election runoff as counting from the first vote entered a fourth day on Wednesday, data from electoral authority ONPE showed, with just over 91% of the ballots counted.
By late morning, leftist congressman Roberto Sanchez held a razor-thin lead over right-wing former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, at 12.1% and 11.9% respectively. Center-left candidate Jorge Nieto was in fourth place at 11.1%.
Lopez Aliaga had held second place for much of the early count but Sanchez jumped ahead overnight.
Fujimori, a former congresswoman and the daughter of late former President Alberto Fujimori, remained comfortably in the lead with 17% of the vote from Sunday’s election.
She is set to advance to a runoff due on June 7, in her fourth bid for the presidency of the South American country.
As counting continues, allegations of fraud have begun to spread. Lopez Aliaga and Sanchez have expressed concerns about the integrity of the process, with Lopez Aliaga sharing early Wednesday a post that called for Fujimori to request that the proceedings be annulled.
European Union election observers said at a press conference on Tuesday that they had found no concrete evidence to support allegations of fraud that have circulated since Sunday.
The extended vote count and uncertainty have also hit markets, with Peru’s sol weakening 1.3% to the U.S. dollar and its main stock index down 3.2% on Wednesday.
THE MAIN CANDIDATES
Fujimori, 50, also reached the runoff in all three of her previous campaigns. She leads the Popular Force party, which anchors a right-wing bloc in Congress.
She has positioned herself as pro-U.S., pitching foreign investment, and her campaign has emphasized a law-and-order message, echoing the militarized security policies associated with the presidency of her father, who ruled from 1990 to 2000 before being jailed for human rights abuses.
Sanchez, 57, a congressman running for the left‑leaning Together for Peru party, has called for a new constitution to establish a “plurinational” state that would give a greater voice to Indigenous communities that have felt excluded from national decision‑making.
From prison, former leftist president Pedro Castillo, who was jailed on rebellion and conspiracy charges after his failed attempt to dissolve Congress in December 2022, has publicly endorsed Sanchez as his preferred successor.
“Let no constitutional president ever again be removed from office or arrested,” Sanchez said Wednesday on X, calling once again for Castillo’s release.
Lopez Aliaga, 65, is an ultraconservative businessman from the Popular Renewal party and a former Citibank corporate banker. Nicknamed “Porky” after the cartoon character Porky Pig, he opposes abortion, same-sex marriage and what he calls “gender ideology.”
Despite years of political upheaval – with eight presidents in as many years – the major copper-producing nation has long been one of the region’s most stable economies.
(Reporting by Marco Aquino, Aida Pelaez-Fernandez and Leila Miller; editing by Philippa Fletcher and Hugh Lawson)
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