Official Count Reaches 95%: Peru's Official Electoral Organization (ONPE)
Update - 4:10 a.m. EST: With 95% of the total votes counted, Keiko's edge has reversed (49.956%) and is now trailing Roberto Sanchez's 50.044%.
Editor's note: The figures below are exit-poll projections, not official results. We will update this article with the official count once ONPE publishes it.
Peru's presidential runoff has produced exactly what the pre-election polling foreshadowed: a statistical dead heat. With voting tables closing at 5 p.m. on Sunday, June 7, the first exit polls handed Keiko Fujimori of Fuerza Popular a wafer-thin lead over Roberto Sanchez of Juntos por el Peru — well inside the margin of error, and far from a settled result.
The exit poll numbers
Ipsos, polling for Peru 21 and Latina, put Fujimori at 50.7% against Sanchez's 49.3%, a result its president Alfredo Torres called a statistical tie. The Ipsos flash drew on 18,000 voters nationwide. Datum, polling for America Television, was even tighter: Fujimori 50.53% to Sanchez 49.47%, with the broadcaster concluding that, given the 3-point margin of error, no one yet knows who Peru's next president will be.
The internal geography explains the deadlock. Ipsos showed Fujimori dominating Lima 66.1% to 33.9%, while Sanchez led the regions 56.1% to 43.9%; Fujimori carried the urban vote 55.5% and the coast 63%, while Sanchez swept the rural vote 67.8% and the sierra 68.7%. It is, in effect, two electorates pulling in opposite directions.
When the official results come
A reminder for readers: exit polls are not official. ONPE's official count is published progressively on its platform at segundavuelta.onpe.gob.pe, with publishing beginning from 6 p.m. ONPE's interim chief, Bernardo Pachas, said official results would be released at a prudent hour as tally sheets are digitized and arrive from polling tables. In a contest this close, the meaningful number is the official tally — and the definitive proclamation rests with the JNE, not expected until early July.
Fraud claims and the conduct of the day
The day was orderly but not flawless. JNE president Roberto Burneo said the process was being carried out normally while acknowledging various incidents, among them ballots found marked by party poll-watchers; at least 75 marked ballots were found at the Hernan Vidaurre sports complex in La Molina, Lima. Through the day, there were also questionings and complaints of irregularities directed at ONPE itself, alongside high abstention, with more than seven million Peruvians not voting despite mandatory suffrage.
No systemic fraud has been confirmed, and the JNE's framing is one of a normal election with isolated incidents. But the margin matters: the result echoes the 2021 runoff, when Fujimori and Pedro Castillo finished roughly 50.1% to 49.9% and the proclamation dragged on for weeks amid nullity challenges. A similarly narrow gap tonight raises the real possibility of contested tally sheets and disputes in the days ahead.
