Weekly Chart: Polling Peru's Presidential Runoff

On June 5, Peruvians will elect their next president in the runoff between Keiko Fujimori and Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. Voting is mandatory in Peru, though citizens over 70 years old are exempt. More than 22.9 million Peruvians were registered to vote in the first-round April 10 general elections, and turnout hit 81.8 percent.

But the contentious first round left many voters disillusioned with the process and the two final candidates. In the April 10 vote, more voters abstained from casting a vote for president than voted for the winner, Fujimori. While 43 percent of voters say they will “never” vote for Fujimori—primarily because she is the daughter of jailed ex-president Alberto—40 percent say the same about the former World Bank and International Monetary Fund economist Kuczynski, known as PPK, who has struggled to galvanize anti-fujimorista sentiment into support for himself. One in five of PPK’s supporters say they feel “indifferent” about him. PPK draws his biggest support when it comes to attracting investment, while voters see Fujimori as better at handling crime and insecurity—Peruvians’ top concern these days. 

Publicly, several leaders have gone to great lengths to not endorse PPK himself but encourage voting for him as the best way to keep Fujimori out of office. Eighty-one percent of Fujimori’s supporters polled said she is the candidate of their choice, while just 55 percent of PPK’s supporters say the same about him, and 34 percent said they’re voting for him as a way to vote against Fujimori.