Peruvians vote for president yet again

Amid growing concerns about crime, Peruvians are choosing between two presidential candidates with starkly different views as they elect their ninth president in 10 years.

Keiko Fujimori, a conservative and the daughter of a disgraced former president, and Roberto Sánchez, a nationalist congressman, beat 33 other candidates in the first round in April, but neither received even 20 percent support.

Pollsters estimate that about 30 percent of voters remain undecided.

Sunday’s results were expected to be tight and the result may not be known for days.

It took more than a month for election officials to declare Fujimori and Sánchez the winners of this vote.

Voting is mandatory for Peruvians between the ages of 18 and 70. More than 27 million people are registered and about 1.2 million of them are expected to vote from abroad, primarily in the United States and Argentina.

Official results of the elections in April showed Fujimori with 17 percent of the vote, to Sánchez’s 12 percent. More than six weeks later, a nationwide poll by Ipsos found that similar shares of voters supported the candidates, with nearly three in 10 saying they were undecided.

Fujimori is linked to the authoritarian and corrupt legacy of his late father Alberto Fujimori’s government in the 1990s. She became the First Lady of Peru in 1994, following the separation of her parents.

Sánchez is one of the closest allies of jailed former president Pedro Castillo, whom many perceive as corrupt and chaotic. There were more than 70 Cabinet changes during Castillo’s 16-month tenure.

Fujimori has pledged to fight crime throughout much of his fourth presidential campaign.

His recommendations include applying technology to track extortion, militarizing borders and increasing the presence of police and military personnel in high-risk areas. Fujimori, 51, also said prisoners should work and “pay their debt to society.”

In the only debate before the runoff, Fujimori defended his father’s government and promised to defeat crime just as he had defeated the Shining Path, a violent extremist group.

Sánchez, a former minister who is now popular among rural voters, has vowed to fight corruption within the police force and promote reforms that would enable the military to support security efforts.