Psychologist, former seminarian and son of Andean migrants, Roberto Sánchez arrives at the runoff on Sunday, June 7 in Peru as the chosen one of Pedro Castillo - sentenced to eleven years in prison for trying to dissolve Congress - to finish what the former left-wing president could not. With a borrowed peasant hat as a flag and a last-minute moderate turn, he faces the right-wing Keiko Fujimori for the Presidency of Peru.

First modification: 06/05/2026 - 04:56 Last modification: 06/05/2026 - 23:51

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As a teenager, Roberto Sánchez wanted to be a priest. He spent two years in a Catholic seminary in Lima before discovering that his thing, in fact, "was social." Decades later, that vocational turn has him at the doors of the Presidency of Peru with a wide-brimmed peasant hat as a flag, contesting this Sunday, June 7, the runoff against the right-wing Keiko Fujimori.

That hat is not a metaphor. It was lent to him by Pedro Castillo, the unionist rural teacher who governed Peru between 2021 and 2022 and who is currently serving an 11-year sentence for conspiracy to rebel after trying to dissolve Congress.

Sánchez frequently visits him in prison, brought him breakfast on the day of the first round and promised to pardon him if he wins the elections. At the close of the electoral campaign he arrived on horseback, emulating his mentor.

From Huaral to Congress

He was born on February 3, 1969 in Huaral, a coastal agricultural province located 75 kilometers north of Lima, the son of migrants from the southern Andes. He studied psychology at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, the oldest and most prestigious public university in the country, and before national politics he worked in municipalities: he was manager in the municipalities of Huaura, Huaral and San Borja. In 2021 he came to Congress.

His party career began in the Humanist Party, founded by former minister Yehude Simón. When it was marred by the scandal of the Odebrecht case, Sánchez took charge of the party, renamed it Together for Peru and refounded it in his image. Simón never forgave him and called him a "traitor."

The minister who survived Castillo

Despite belonging to a different party than Castillo, Sánchez was able to gain his trust after the surprising victory of the Cajamarca teacher in 2021. He appointed him Minister of Foreign Trade and Tourism and was the only member of the cabinet who remained from the first day to the last of that government.

When Castillo attempted a self-coup in December 2022, Sánchez resigned from his position in the ministry. Back as a congressman, when the Legislature voted to dismiss the then president, he abstained. Castillo, however, forgave him and chose him to compete on his behalf.

Today his party houses a good part of the former president's family: his brother José Mercedes and Irma Castillo, his sister-in-law Yenifer Paredes and other direct relatives make up the ranks of Together for Peru as candidates for different positions.

The vote of "deep Peru"

"I come from below," Sánchez said in the presidential debate. Its strongest electoral base is found in the rural and impoverished areas of the southern Andean region, the same territory that gave Castillo victory in 2021 against Keiko Fujimori.

His own electoral strength, however, is modest.

As a candidate for deputy for Lima, he headed the list, but obtained only 14,000 votes. What drives him is Castillo's name, the hat and an electorate that believes that the former president was overthrown by the country's political and economic elites.

In the first round in April he appeared fifth in the polls among 35 candidates and ended up entering the runoff. Later, the Prosecutor's Office reactivated an accusation against him for allegedly having declared false information about contributions to his parliamentary campaign between 2018 and 2020. The case is still pending.

The last minute twist

This solid base in the southern Andean region finds it difficult to expand towards the urban center and that partly explains what happened in the last days of the campaign.

On June 1, after the debate with Fujimori, Sánchez presented a completely new government plan.

The original document registered before the National Elections Jury (JNE) was replaced by a 114-page one, built with four allied groups. He called it a "consensus program."

Read alsoPolarization increases days before the second presidential round in Peru

The Constituent Assembly, which in the original plan was the central axis of everything, now appears as one of several components of a broader democratic reform.

The 1993 Constitution, previously described as illegitimate, now requires a "consensus reform" subject to popular consultation. The turn is real, although incomplete: Sánchez does not resign from the Constituent Assembly, only lowers her in the hierarchy of discourse.

For political analyst Hernán Chaparro, the movement reveals more of a character trait than a programmatic conviction.

"It shows that he is someone who turns quickly and is always looking to accumulate power. He used Antauro Humala in the first round and when he no longer serves him, he leaves him aside," he explains in conversation with France 24.

The question, he says, is whether that last-minute turn will be enough to convince the center.

Read alsoWhite and null vote, options for the undecided in Peru in the face of the political crisis

Program: between the State and the market

In economics, his proposal is very far from the current model: greater presence of the State, redistribution of resources and renegotiation of contracts for the exploitation of natural resources, including the largest gas field in the country.

It also proposes reviewing agreements with Chinese mining companies to incorporate technology transfer and bring Peru closer to the BRICS and Mercosur blocks. At the same time, the new plan promises to respect free trade agreements and the independence of the Central Bank.

In security, the main concern of the electorate, he promises to repeal laws that facilitate crime and create an Investigative Police to stop extortion, which quintupled in five years, and murders, which doubled in the same period. He also promised to raise the salaries of 400,000 teachers and more than 100,000 police officers.

The ally that bothers

Sánchez's most vulnerable side is not Castillo but Antauro Humala, the retired military man who leads the ethnocacerista movement, a current of supremacy of the Andean race. Antauro spent 17 years in prison for the Andahuaylazo, an uprising in 2005 in which five police officers died, and was released in 2022. Sánchez added him to his electoral lists.

Antauro's positions worry broad sectors of Peruvian society: he proposes shooting former presidents convicted of corruption, including his own brother Ollanta, who governed between 2011 and 2016, and militarily recovering the territories lost to Chile in the Pacific War of the 19th century.

Sánchez says he does not share those ideas. But the alliance is made, and according to Chaparro, when Antauro stopped adding votes, he simply removed him from the speech.

"I'm not a communist"

He married at 44 and has two daughters, aged nine and three, whom he has kept completely out of the campaign.

He says he comes from social Christianity, claims to be a "man of faith," "pro-life" and "pro-family." He recently clarified to journalists: "I respect communists, but I am not a communist."

This Sunday, with Castillo's hat, he seeks what his mentor could not sustain.

With EFE, AFP and AP

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