Peru votes for ninth president in less than decade | Elections News

Voters to choose from 35 presidential candidates, including a comedian, a media baron and a political dynasty heiress.

Polls have closed in Peru’s presidential and legislative elections, with no clear frontrunner amid years of political instability.

Some 27 million Peruvians were eligible to vote on Sunday to pick the country’s ninth leader in a decade, with polling stations across the country opening at 7am (12:00 GMT) and closing at 5pm (22:00 GMT), and preliminary results expected shortly afterwards.

With 35 candidates on the presidential ballot, Peruvians will choose from a wide range of potential leaders, including a comedian, a media baron, a political dynasty heiress, and a hard‑line ex‑mayor who likens himself to a cartoon pig.

An early exit ⁠poll by Ipsos Peru showed right-leaning ⁠candidate ⁠Keiko Fujimori leading the race with 16.6 percent, followed by leftist candidate Roberto ‌Sanchez with 12.1 percent, and centre-leftist Ricardo Belmont with 11.8 percent.

If no candidate ⁠clears the 50 percent threshold needed to win outright, ⁠the two most-voted-for ⁠candidates would ⁠advance to a second round, scheduled for June 7.

Since 2018, Peru has seen eight presidents, with a high turnover rate marred by impeachments and corruption scandals, leading to voter disillusionment with weak governments.

“Peru is a mess, and there’s no candidate worth voting for,” Gloria Padilla, a fruit seller in the capital, Lima, told the Reuters news agency.

Clothing merchant Maria Fernandez, 56, shared the same sentiment.

“I wouldn’t vote for anyone. I’m so disappointed with everyone in power,” Fernandez told the AFP news agency. “We’ve been governed by nothing but corrupt, thieving scoundrels,” she added.

This is the fourth presidential bid for Fujimori, who reached the run-off in all three previous races.

While Fujimori has taken the position of guarantor of order and economic stability, her candidacy remains polarising due to her family legacy. Her father, former President Alberto Fujimori, was convicted of human rights abuses and corruption before he died in 2024.

On the eve of the election, Fujimori told AFP that she would “restore order” in her first 100 days if she were to win, sending members of the army to jail, deporting undocumented migrants and strengthening security at the border.

At the other end of the political spectrum, Belmont – a former mayor of Lima, running for the centre-left Civic Party Obras – was polling in second place.

Popular comedian Carlos Alvarez campaigned on a platform of being tough on crime, as Peru’s homicide rate has more than doubled in the past decade.