Overview
- Peruvians cast first‑round ballots Sunday in presidential and congressional races with roughly 35 candidates on the ticket, making an outright win highly unlikely and setting up a June 7 runoff.
- Voting in parts of Lima opened hours late in what the electoral commission said were subcontractor delivery failures, and officials extended polling by one hour to clear long lines.
- Conservative Keiko Fujimori led pre‑silence polls at about 15% and pledged to seek special powers, send the armed forces into prisons and to the borders, and expel undocumented migrants.
- Public safety dominated the campaign as official data show homicides have about doubled this decade and reported extortion cases rose from roughly 3,200 a year to about 26,500.
- The next president will face a newly restored bicameral Congress with a 60‑seat Senate that can remove a president with 40 votes, raising the risk of fresh power struggles.