LIMA, Peru — Even by the chaotic standards of Peru's recent politics, this Sunday's election has the potential to confuse and frustrate the Andean nation's 27 million voters.
A record 35 candidates are running for president—the country's ninth leader in nearly as many years, reflecting deep political instability. Voters will face a jumbo-sized ballot featuring candidates' photos and party symbols, a longstanding practice in a society historically marked by low literacy levels.
Many of them are unknowns barely registering one percent of support. But, amid widespread fury with the entire political class, even the handful of candidates with established profiles are failing to gather momentum.
That means that a run-off election in June between the top two candidates is all but inevitable.
Leading the pack, but only just, is Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of the late, disgraced 1990s strongman Alberto Fujimori.
She has been walking a tightrope between cloaking herself in her father's legacy of crushing hyperinflation and the Shining Path – Maoist insurgents who once killed roughly 30,000 Peruvians – while also distancing herself from his serious human rights abuses and kleptocracy.
Yet although she consistently polls around 10%, that figure may be both her electoral floor and ceiling, with many Peruvians blaming her and her party for their nation's ongoing political turmoil.
It began in 2016, when Keiko, as she is known here, lost the presidential contest but her Popular Force party won a majority of seats in congress, ushering in a decade of instability, including impeachments of multiple ministers and presidents.
One recent survey found that 54% of Peruvians said they wouldn't vote for her under any circumstances. Despite this, she is still likely to reach a fourth consecutive run-off—having done so in 2011, 2016 and 2021—though she could again be defeated at that the final stage.
Behind her is a pack of half-a-dozen other candidates, all in the mid-to-high single digits, any one of whom might, with a small, late surge, make it into the run-off.
Prominent among them is Rafael Lópeza Aliaga, the ultra-conservative former mayor of Lima, who is sometimes dubbed "the Peruvian Trump". He has already been making unsubstantiated claims of imminent electoral "fraud" and issuing death threats to the head of ONPE, Peru's electoral agency.
The field also features Carlos Álvarez, a Fujimori ally better known for parodying politicians than for offering policy—something underscored by his difficulty answering basic questions in recent debates.
Then there is Ricardo Belmont, an octogenarian left-wing populist whose long career has been marked by repeated sexist, homophobic and xenophobic remarks.
Polls show that Peruvians overwhelmingly want fresh blood in their politics, meaning candidates without links to the current congress. It has passed multiple laws allegedly favoring organized crime and has a disapproval rating near 90%.
"It is based on the certainty that high-level corruption has fueled a decade of political instability, and that a tacit alliance of political leaders bent on impunity and state plunder has cleared the way for organized crime to flourish in the streets," says Samuel Rotta, who heads anti-corruption group Accion Civica, as he explains citizens' disgust at the political class.
That is no surprise in a society gripped by an extortion epidemic, with a record homicide rate, and where the number of Peruvians suffering food insecurity doubled from 25% before the pandemic to 51% now according to the World Food Programme.
On Sunday, Peruvians will have the opportunity to change course. But with a crowded field of candidates all struggling to break out of single digits, a run-off election is almost certain.
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