Polls have opened in Peru’s presidential run-off, culminating an election season marred by confusion and protest.

Issues of crime, corruption and voter disillusionment following years of political turmoil loomed large over Sunday’s vote, which saw right-wing candidate and former first lady Keiko Fujimori face off with leftist congressmember Roberto Sanchez.

Both are running to be the South American country’s ninth leader in a decade, with Peruvian leaders regular toppled by forced resignations or impeachment in recent years.

How the elections are administered will also be closely watched after logistical issues and a lengthy vote count challenged trust in the process during the first round of voting. The ril 12 election featured 35 candidates.

Following that vote, Fujimori easily asserted her place in two-person runoff with 17 percent of the vote, but it took weeks for Sanchez to be named her competitor with 12 percent support.

The third place candidate, far-right former mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, has alleged fraud in the count, although election monitors have found no evidence to back up the claim.

Speaking to news agency, voter Evelyn Pazos said she was hoping Sunday’s vote goes smoothly.

I hope the entire process is carried out transparently, that the people’s vote is respected, the 43-year-old said.

Hugo Vasquez, a craft seller in Lima, pointed to widespread disillusionment among the country’s 27 million voters.

There is a lot of disorder and corruption, and we’re going to vote, as always, for the ‘lesser evil’, the 67-year-old told the news agency.

Fujimori and Sanchez have vowed vastly different visions of leadership.

The 51-year-old Fujimori, who was named first lady by her father, former right-wing President Alberto Fujimori, in the 1990s, has remained a defender of her family’s legacy.

Detractors have pointed to human rights abuses committed under the elder Fujimori, including the forced sterilisation of Indigenous people and extrajudicial killings carried out by death squads.

The president of the right-wing Popular Force party, which has controlled Congress for years, she has run on a tough-on-crime platform. That has included vows to defeat terrorism and impose a 60-day state of emergency.

Her candidacy has sparked a new protest movement in the final days of the race. Avictory would continue a trend of right-wing candidates being elected across the country.

The 57-year-old Sanchez, meanwhile, has styled himself in the likeness of former leftwing President Pedro Castillo.

He briefly served as foreign trade and tourism minister under Castillo, who was arrested and impeached in a failed bid to dissolve Congress in 2022.

Sanchez, a former psychologist, has sought to peal to rural and Indigenous voters in the country, vowing anti-poverty measures, police reform and what he has described as a new constitution built collectively, through dialogue and citizen participation.

Like Castillo, he has adopted wearing a wide-brimmed Chota hat on the campaign trail, a style common in Peru’s rural north.

Other pledges have included reparations for victims of Alberto Fujimori’s government and repealing laws that shield law enforcement and security forces from accountability.

Still, he has steered the centre in some of his economic policies, in an parent bid to court centrists, while promising to take on corruption in the police and judiciary, which he has said enables criminal networks.

Just hours before the election, a judge ruled Sanchez must stand trial on charges related to past financial irregularities in his party, in what his allies have condemned as interference in the vote.

While Keiko held a commanding lead in the first round of voting, observers have said a large segment of disaffected voters could make the difference in the runoff.

While every eligible voter is legally required to cast a ballot in Peru, about 7.16 million did not do so in the first round of voting.

About 12 percent of voters who did vote cast blank ballots, while about 5 percent cast spoiled ballots.

Someone ordered a pizza and then shot the delivery person in the head, leading to his death, reported CBS news.

He described himself as being proficient in data and data visualisation software and someone who was always eager to embrace new challenges and opportunities for continuous skill development.

Also read | Indian man from Telangana called for pizza delivery, shot dead in US’ Philadelphia

He earned a Master’s degree in Business from Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business in Pennsylvania, United States, between September 2022 and March 2024. During his studies, he received the LeBow Alumni Merit Scholarship and developed skills in SQL, advanced statistics, and -related disciplines.

Prior to that, he completed a Bachelor of Technology (BTech) in Chemical Engineering from Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology in India, where he was also associated with the university soccer team. Professionally, he worked as a Data Validation Analyst in the United States, including roles at DataBank IMX and Validation Associates LLC, as per his profile. Earlier, he served as a Data Management Coordinator at Echo Hospice.

He worked weekends on pizza delivery.

Before moving to the US, he worked in India as a Senior Product Compliance Analyst at Amazon and held Operations Analyst and Graduate Engineering Trainee positions at Jio Platforms Limited. He also completed professional certifications from the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) and worked on projects such as an ple Stock Price Predictor, as per his LinkedIn page.

Also read | ‘Don’t send your kids to the US’: Sister of Indian man shot dead in Philadelphia

In a CCTV footage ctured by the Philadelphia Housing Authority, the victim is seen walking with the pizza. He was then followed by two people wearing dark clothing and carrying backpacks.

“It was a tr. It was to kill him. I don’t know what they gained out of it or what intentions they had. They took my brother and killed him,” Kuncha’s sister told PTI, adding that his family were told that he was shot in the head three times and left on the road.

“We don’t have any suspicion…it’s a decoy. As per US media reports, it seems there were two gunmen wearing black masks with backpacks,” she added further.

Anshul’s sister sought justice and pealed to the Ministry of External Affairs to bring back the mortal remains of her brother.

She also shared a message for parents who are considering sending their children to the United States for further education and to build careers.

For the sixth-straight day, thousands of protesters have rallied in the Albanian cital against a proposed luxury beach development linked to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. Environmental groups accuse authorities of lacking transparency and allowing for the destruction of protected biodiversity on the country’s Adriatic Coast.

CJP’s newly named spokesperson Saurav Das took to X to post a ‘thank you’ message for the police for extending support to the democratic protest and for detaining “anti-social elements.”

The political outfit, that emerged from an online campaign last month, organised a protest led by its founder Abhijeet Dipke at the Jantar Mantar demanding Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s removal. The outfit warned that the agitation would expand across the country if he is not sacked or does not resign voluntarily.

In a statement earlier, it said thousands of young people from across the country gathered at Jantar Mantar in a peaceful demonstration demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

Thanking the Delhi Police for their cooperation, the CJP said that the outfit’s priority was a peaceful demonstration, adding that the agitation remained peaceful throughout.

The CJP began as an online campaign as a result of an outrage against Chief Justice of India Surya Kant’s remarks. Within few weeks, the outfit garnered over 22 million followers on Instagram.

The group has now warned of bigger protests if no action is taken within seven days.

“This is the beginning of a movement. If no action is taken within seven days, this movement will spread across the country,” the statement read.

“Certain social media posts and news reports are claiming that Delhi Police has registered an FIR against the protesters at Jantar Mantar. It is clarified that no such FIR has been registered,” a social post of Delhi Police read, warning people against circulating unverified information.

Dipke, who called for the protest, arrived in Delhi from the United States on Saturday morning. He headed to Jantar Mantar after receiving permission from the Delhi Police.

“This is not just the fear of my mother, this is the fear of the parents of any youngster who speaks on politics…. How long will we live in fear? Tell them, we are not scared,” he said.

“My friends, this is a long struggle. It has been a month since we started demanding Pradhan’s resignation on social media, but these individuals are so shameless that instead of taking action, they have been focussed on other distractions, like hacking our accounts and getting our posts deleted. You may be able to delete our posts, but you cannot erase us from this space,” he added.

The impasse in the US-Israel war on Iran has turned Lebanon into the conflict’s most active front. Israeli forces are entrenched in the country’s south, a de facto occupation, and have reduced entire neighbourhoods to rubble. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump seeks to preserve delicate negotiations with Iran, but, as Israeli support for the war continues to grow, Lebanon remains a key point of contention.

Lead contributors:

Nicholas Noe – Senior fellow, Refugees International
Maya Rosen – Editor, Jewish Currents
Randa Slim – Middle East programme director, Stimson Centre

On our radar:

This week, two prominent American commentators, Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker, had their UK visas revoked before scheduled speaking events in London. Both are outspoken critics of Israel, its occupation, its wars and the US policy towards it. The action by the UK authorities has called into question the right to free speech and political expression in the country. Meenakshi Ravi reports.

AfrofeminasGPT: AI through a Black feminist lens

Artificial intelligence systems are often trained on data shed by human bias. As a result, discrimination can spread through the systems that increasingly she our lives. In Spain, one woman is trying to change that with AfrofeminasGPT – a chatbot trained on Black feminist and decolonial thought, designed to challenge racism in AI. But can an alternative, built on the same model that it seeks to reform, ever truly be independent?

Feature contributor:

Mutale Nkonde – AI Researcher, Cambridge University
Safiya Noble – Professor, UCLA
Antoinette Torres Soler – Founder, Afrofemin