Fujimori attacks Sánchez's team as 'political Frankenstein' ahead of runoff

Keiko Fujimori spent the first days of June crisscrossing Peru's provinces—Huarmey in Áncash, Huacho in the Lima hinterland—and from the campaign trail she launched a sustained attack on her runoff opponent, Roberto Sánchez Palomino. Her complaint was structural: Sánchez, she said, had gutted his government plan less than a week before voters would decide between them, and in doing so had assembled what she called a "political Frankenstein"—a technical team stocked with controversial figures from the Castillo administration who had held ministerial posts under the previous left-wing government.

The team Sánchez unveiled included Rosendo Serna, Dimitri Senmache, Walter Ayala, and Andrés Alencastre, all of whom had served in government roles that drew scrutiny. Fujimori seized on this as evidence of opportunism and continuity with a failed past. She invoked Groucho Marx to characterize Sánchez's shifting positions: "He changes his plans like he changes his speeches. As the comedian said, 'I have my principles, and if you don't like them, I have others.'" The implication was clear—Sánchez had no fixed ideology, only ambition. She went further, suggesting that Sánchez's willingness to receive the runoff results at Barbadillo prison, where former president Pedro Castillo was detained, revealed how deeply he was indebted to Castillo and to Antauro Humala, the imprisoned leader of the 2000 Andahuaylas uprising. "This is a triumvirate," Fujimori said. "It will be a government of three. Roberto Sánchez is a bad imitation of Pedro Castillo."

Fujimori also trained fire on Pedro Francke, Sánchez's chief economic advisor and former finance minister, arguing that his tenure had destroyed private investment and cost Peru 400,000 jobs. She questioned whether voters could trust someone with that record to manage the economy again. But her most pointed criticism concerned Sánchez's time as commerce and tourism minister under Castillo. During that tenure, Fujimori said, he had done nothing for the sector—worse than nothing, actually, because funding for Promperú, the state tourism promotion agency, had been slashed. She contrasted this with her own vision: building and renovating roads, supporting hotels and restaurants, making Peru attractive to visitors again. Sánchez had claimed in the previous Sunday's debate that his ministry record was "impeccable," but he faced a constitutional complaint for allegedly intervening in the hiring of an advisor and for suspected misuse of ministry funds for personal expenses and alleged payments for job placements.

Fujimori's campaign message crystallized around a binary choice: order or chaos. She spoke of a country gripped by fear, where people were killed for a cell phone, where streets belonged to criminals rather than families. Her solution was methodical and security-focused—strengthen the National Police, work with the Armed Forces, conduct sweeps in dangerous zones, recover control of borders and prisons. She drew a contrast between her team and Sánchez's by invoking her own advisors: Marco Miyashiro, who had led the capture of Abimael Guzmán, the Shining Path leader, and General César Astudillo, who had orchestrated the rescue of hostages from the Japanese ambassador's residence. "On the other side, who do they have?" she asked. "A killer of police officers. What can they do about crime? Nothing."

Fujimori also took a longer historical view. In the past 25 years, she said, except for Alan García, Peru had been governed by "anti-Fujimorists," and what had they accomplished? Very little. She recalled Ollanta Humala's broken promise to cap gas prices at 12 soles. "It was all a lie," she said. She positioned herself as someone who knew the country intimately—she had been campaigning for 30 years, she said, and understood both the problems and the solutions. Her platform included a million property titles through Cofopri, expansion of social programs like Juntos and Pensión 65 (which she would make universal), broader access to 24-hour water service (only 45 percent had it currently), and preparations for an anticipated El Niño phenomenon. For Áncash specifically, she promised a new port for fishermen in Chimbote and a shopping center in Huaraz.

Fujimori's campaign schedule showed confidence in her regional strategy. She had started this fourth presidential bid at just 6 percent support and had climbed steadily. She planned to visit Piura and Lambayeque on Wednesday and close her campaign on Thursday in Ate Vitarte, in eastern Lima, possibly at the Monumental Arena, which belonged to Universitario de Deportes. She called on supporters to register as poll observers, emphasizing that election integrity required vigilance from both sides. The runoff was set for Sunday, and Fujimori framed it as a referendum on what kind of government Peruvians wanted for the next five years—not a choice about her personally, but a choice between order and chaos.