The daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori reached 50.01 percent of the vote around midnight, compared to Sanchez’s 49.99 percent, on the third day of the count, during which the latter candidate maintained a narrow lead of less than one percent.

Fujimori, who is attempting to win the presidency after failing in three previous runoffs, took the lead with 9,032,265 votes compared to her rival’s 9,031,776.

The candidate of the Fuerza Popular (Popular Force-FP) party commented a few hours earlier that the overseas vote gives her a lot of encouragement, but the final result must be awaited with great caution and responsibility.

She refrained from commenting on criticisms from her rival, Roberto Sanchez, regarding the media handling of a statement by an executive of a polling firm who stated that she had a better chance of winning.

Sanchez, in turn, denounced “a will of many leaders who want to distort the democratic result of the institutional count” to favor Fujimori, a group he included in the majority of the press that is hostile to him, and called on the electoral bodies not to allow it.

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