General elections are scheduled to be held in Peru on 12 April 2026, with proposals to bring them forward to 2023 or 2024 due to the 2022âÂÂ2023 Peruvian protests rejected. The presidential elections will determine the president and the vice presidents, while the congressional elections will determine the composition of the Congress of Peru, which will return to being a bicameral legislature with a 60-seat Senate and 130-seat Chamber of Deputies. A record of 34 registered candidates entered the presidential race by December 2025. The last president, José JerÃÂ, was removed from office in February 2026 by way of censure by a majority vote in Congress. In the months before the election, the power of Congress over the executive and judiciary was documented by observers who noted the importance of a new legislature.
The president is elected using the two-round system. The first round voting allows eligible voters to vote for any viable presidential candidate. The top two candidates who receive a plurality of the vote proceed to the run-off election. The winner of the run-off election and the presidential election is the candidate who receives a plurality of the popular vote. However, if in the first round the candidate who is in the first place already gets more than 50% of the popular vote, that candidate will automatically win the election and a run-off election will no longer be needed.
The 130 members of the Chamber of Deputies are elected in 27 multi-member constituencies using open list proportional representation. To enter Congress, parties must either cross the 5% electoral threshold at the national level, or win at least seven seats in one constituency. Seats are allocated using the D'Hondt method. The 60 senators are elected through two systems, with 30 elected in a single nationwide constituency through proportional representation and 30 elected from the 27 constituencies used for the Chamber of Deputies, with Lima province electing four senators and the other 26 constituencies electing one each. Peru has five seats in the Andean Parliament, which are elected using a common constituency by open list proportional representation.
Peru's 2026 general election is being held after a prolonged period of political instability that began well before the current electoral cycle. During the presidencies of Ollanta Humala, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and MartÃÂn Vizcarra, the Congress was dominated by the opposition Popular Force, the party created by the daughter of the former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, Keiko Fujimori, and opposed many of the actions performed by the presidents. Fujimorists in Congress "earned a reputation as hardline obstructionists for blocking initiatives popular with Peruvians aimed at curbing the nation's rampant corruption" according to the Associated Press.
Following the 2021 Peruvian general election, far right parties, including Go on Country, Popular Force and Popular Renewal, gained control of Congress. After left-wing presidential candidate Pedro Castillo won the presidency, Fujimori and her supporters made claims of electoral fraud, leading obstructionist efforts to overturn the election with support of citizens in Lima. Many business groups and politicians refused to recognize Castillo's ascent to the presidency, with those among the more affluent, including former military officers and wealthy families, demanded new elections, promoted calls for a military coup, and used rhetoric to support their allegations of fraud. From the beginning of his presidency, Castillo was targeted by Congress, whom made it clear that they wanted to remove him from office by impeachment.
Due to broadly interpreted impeachment wording in the Constitution of Peru (1993), Congress can impeach the president on the vague grounds of "moral incapacity", effectively making the legislature more powerful than the executive branch. Congress, which had already attempted to impeach Castillo twice, began a third process of impeachment in late 2022. On 7 December 2022, Castillo attempted to dissolve Congress, arguing that the legislative body, which had obstructed many of his policies, was serving oligopolistic businesses and had colluded with the Constitutional Court of Peru to undermine the executive branch, thereby creating a "congressional dictatorship". The move was rejected by state institutions and he was removed from office and arrested. Two months after Castillo was removed, Congress would obtain nearly absolute control of Peru's government when the Constitutional Court, whose members were directly chosen by Congress, removed judicial oversight of the legislative body.
Castillo's vice president, Dina Boluarte, assumed the presidency amid the widespread protests against her government. Following her ascension to the presidency, Boluarte aligned herself with the far-right Congress. She was described by analysts as authoritarian due to her crackdown on demonstrations, with human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the National Coordinator for Human Rights criticizing her administration's response, especially after the Ayacucho and Juliaca massacre<nowiki/>s. Although proposals were repeatedly introduced to bring forward the scheduled 2026 vote, they were rejected by Congress. In October 2025, Boluarte was removed from office by Congress on "moral incapacity" grounds amid mounting public anger over insecurity and corruption allegations.
In his position in the order of succession, president of Congress José Jeràsucceeded Boluarte, initially assumed the presidency leading into the 2026 elections. Jeràbecame Peru's seventh president in nine years. However, in February 2026, José Jeràwas removed from office by Congress for holding undisclosed meetings with Zhihua Yang, a Chinese businessman under scrutiny from the Peruvian government. He was succeeded by José MarÃÂa Balcázar, who was elected by Congress to serve as president of Congress and thus made president of Peru.
The campaign has taken shape amid heightened public concern over citizen security, organized crime, persistent distrust in political institutions, and ongoing debates about corruption and economic governance. Concerns about the power Congress held over the executive and judiciary branches were also noted by observers, with Will Freeman of the Council on Foreign Relations warning that Congress was attempting to build a "mafia state" in the run up to the elections.
A return to a bicameral legislative system was also established by Congress, which includes 130 seats for deputies and 60 seats for senators. Deputies serve as the lower house tasked with presenting legislative bill<nowiki/>s and providing oversight of the Cabinet of Peru, having more responsibility over political objectives. Senators represent the upper house and hold more institutional control; they review bills presented by deputies and are responsible for electing the directors of the Central Reserve Bank of Peru, the members of the Constitutional Court of Peru, the Comptroller General, Ombudsman of Peru and other institutional leaders. Upper house senators also hold the power to approve certain functions of the executive, such as foreign travel, and the ability to remove the president.
The following nominees have filed to run at the National Jury of Elections once having won their respective primaries: