MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Monday, June 8th 2026 - 09:44 UTC
The result shifted through the night. Exit polls released as voting closed had initially placed Fujimori first, but the quick count reversed the trend
Peru's presidential runoff ended without a clear winner after an extremely close vote. A quick count by the pollster Ipsos, carried out with the NGO Transparencia on a representative sample of tally sheets, gave a slight edge to leftist candidate Roberto Sánchez, with 50.3% of the vote, against 49.7% for conservative Keiko Fujimori. The gap, within the margin of error, amounts to a technical tie that prolongs the uncertainty in a country that has had nine presidents in a decade.
The result shifted through the night. Exit polls released as voting closed had initially placed Fujimori first, but the quick count —which tends to anticipate the final result more precisely— reversed the trend. At the same time, the still-partial official count by the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE) favored Fujimori, though the tally sheets processed came largely from Lima, one of her strongholds; the rural and Andean areas, where Sánchez performs best, remained to be counted.
