Fujimori's Lead Grows to 16,000 Votes as Fuerza Popular Tops Both Houses of Peru's New Congress

Peru's presidential candidate for the Fuerza Popular party, Keiko Fujimori, speaks to members of the media outside her house in Lima on June 11, 2026. Conservative Keiko Fujimori retook the lead over her leftist rival in Peru's drawn-out presidential election count late on June 10, but with 98 percent of polling stations reporting, the race remained too close to call. (Credit: Photo by ERNESTO BENAVIDES/AFP via Getty Images)

Nearly a week after polls closed, Peru has no certified president-elect — though Keiko Fujimori's slender edge has hardened a little. On ONPE's live results portal, the Fuerza Popular leader sat at 50.045% to Roberto Sánchez's 49.955% with 98.521% of tally sheets processed, holding 9,068,331 votes to his 9,051,905. That is a margin of 16,426 ballots — larger than the few-hundred-vote gap seen days earlier, yet still almost invisible across more than 18 million valid votes. And it is far from final: the roughly 1.479% of sheets still outstanding amount to about 300,000 votes measured against the 19.35 million cast, a pool that towers over Fujimori's current advantage.

The holdup is procedural, not sinister. Beyond the sheets still being entered, around 1,500 tally records were flagged as contested on June 7 and cannot count until they are resolved. Peru also separates counting from certifying: ONPE tabulates the vote, but only the National Jury of Elections (JNE) can legally proclaim a winner once every disputed sheet, appeal and legal remedy is exhausted.

On timing, the JNE has been blunt: a spokesperson said the official proclamation will come around the middle of July. The country has lived this suspense before — in 2021 an equally microscopic gap took weeks to certify and briefly unraveled when a judge reviewing disputed ballots stepped aside.

Peru's presidential candidate Roberto Sanchez (C), for the Juntos por el Peru party, speaks as he leaves his home with his wife Claudia Pinazzo (2nd L), their daughters Qorianka (L) and Killa, and his parents to attend mass during Peru's presidential runoff election day in Huaral, Lima department, on June 7, 2026. Peruvians will choose their ninth president in 10 years, in a tight runoff election between conservative Keiko Fujimori and leftist Roberto Sanchez who are trying to woo voters fed up with political chaos and rising crime. (Credit: Photo by Connie FRANCE/AFP via Getty Images)

Both campaigns are, for now, publicly patient. Fujimori has urged supporters to hold on for every last ballot, and her camp is buoyed by the overseas vote, which has broken her way; but she still insists outside her Lima home the count should run "until the last" vote. Sánchez's Juntos por el Perú, meanwhile, has signaled it will accept the official tally, with the candidate pressing for the count to finish in full public view.

Fuerza Popular Tops Both Houses in Peru's Congress

The presidency is only half of what Peruvians decided. The legislature was settled in the April 12 first round, and for the first time since 1990 it will be bicameral — 60 senators and 130 deputies. Fujimori's party finished first in both chambers without controlling either.

Senate (60 Seats Total)

• Fuerza Popular: 22 seats
• Juntos por el Perú: 14 seats
• Renovación Popular: 8 seats
• Partido del Buen Gobierno: 7 seats
• Partido Cívico OBRAS: 5 seats
• Ahora Nación: 4 seats

Chamber of Deputies (130 Seats Total)

• Fuerza Popular: 41 seats
• Juntos por el Perú: 32 seats
• Partido del Buen Gobierno: 18 seats
• Renovación Popular: 15 seats
• Partido Cívico OBRAS: 14 seats
• Ahora Nación: 10 seats

Peru Parliamentary Elections 2026 (Credit: ONPE)

That arithmetic promises a grind. Whoever takes the oath on July 28 — Peru's ninth president in roughly a decade — will hold a majority in neither chamber, bargaining vote by vote in a Congress where the biggest bloc belongs to either the winner's rival or an uneasy partner. With the electorate split almost perfectly in two, the next leader inherits a divided nation and a verdict the country is still, ballot by ballot, waiting to hear.