Keiko Fujimori, the conservative politician and daughter of a controversial former Peruvian president, was officially declared the winner of Peru's presidential runoff election on Friday, ending a protracted vote-counting process that lasted nearly a month. With 100% of ballots tallied, Fujimori received 50.135% of the vote — roughly 9.22 million ballots — against 49.865% for her left-wing rival, nationalist congressman Roberto Sánchez. The razor-thin margin of around 50,000 votes was certified by Peru's top electoral authority. Fujimori, 51, will become Peru's ninth president in ten years when she is inaugurated on 28 July, serving a five-year term.

The road to victory was contentious. Just as Fujimori herself had done after the 2021 election, Sánchez attempted to have thousands of ballots annulled — particularly votes cast abroad, which ultimately tipped the result in Fujimori's favour — and filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Sánchez has also called for street protests, and the deep polarisation of the country, which split between his rural strongholds and Fujimori's urban and diaspora base, signals a difficult mandate ahead. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, despite leading a left-wing government, congratulated Fujimori and expressed hope for a prosperous and integrated South America.

Fujimori's victory comes on her fourth consecutive presidential bid, having narrowly lost in 2011, 2016, and 2021. Her electoral fortunes turned after she chose to fully embrace the legacy of her father, the late Alberto Fujimori, who governed Peru from 1990 to 2000. His presidency was defined by the defeat of the Shining Path and Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement — brutal armed groups that terrorised Peru's poorest regions — but also by a self-coup in 1992, the dismantling of democratic institutions, and a reign marked by authoritarianism. He was convicted of crimes against humanity and corruption and died in 2024 while serving a 25-year prison sentence. During the campaign, Keiko explicitly invoked her father's security model, promising to replicate it against today's organised crime gangs.

Crime was the defining issue of this election. Voters across Peru have grown increasingly fearful of violent extortion by organised criminal networks, and Fujimori pledged to tackle the problem with what she called an iron fist. She will govern with a significant congressional base: her party, Fuerza Popular, holds 41 of 130 seats in the lower chamber and 22 of 60 in the Senate. Peru's political system has been marked by extreme fragility — no president has completed a full term since Ollanta Humala left office in 2016, with successive leaders impeached, imprisoned, or forced out in a cycle of institutional collapse.

Fujimori's election is historic: she becomes the first woman to be elected president of Peru, though the country previously had a female head of state in Dina Boluarte, who took office following a failed self-coup by then-president Pedro Castillo in 2022. At her final campaign rally before the runoff, Fujimori pledged to "build bridges across the deepest divides" of a fractured nation. Whether she can do so — governing a country where nearly half the electorate voted against her and whose institutions have repeatedly broken down — will define her presidency.