The counting of votes in the presidential election in Peru continues dramatically, this Wednesday (10), with the lead of the left-wing candidate Roberto Sánchez Palomino having fallen to just 7,300 votes over the right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori, in a universe of more than 27 million voters eligible to vote. With 97.8% of the ballots counted, Sánchez has 50.020% of the valid votes against 49.80% for Keiko. At noon yesterday (9), Sánchez had 19 thousand votes ahead of Keiko with 95.9% of the votes counted.  Related news: Keiko Fujimori calls for the cancellation of 200,000 votes in the Peruvian elections. Elections in Peru: Sánchez surpasses Fujimori with 93.9% of the votes counted. The difference reached around 4 thousand votes this morning, but grew again in the latest updates. Until the closing of this report, 9,014,951 votes had been tallied for Sánchez and 9,7614,917 votes for Keiko, according to the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE) of Peru.  The leftist candidate was more than 40 thousand votes away from Fujimori over the last 24 hours, but this difference has been falling over the last few hours, with an increase in votes for the daughter of former dictator Alberto Fujimori, who governed the country between 1990 and 2000. The counting of Peruvian votes abroad, which is more delayed, has given an advantage to Keiko, who has 63.3% of the votes compared to 36.6% for Sánchez. Of the total of 92,700 minutes of the Peruvian election, 378 remain to be counted. Of Peruvian voters, 1.2 million are abroad, which represents 4.4% of total voters, according to official data. Twists At the beginning of the count, when only 20% of the ballot boxes had been processed, Keiko was 200,000 votes ahead of Sánchez, due to the fact that the ballot boxes in Lima, the capital, had been counted first. However, the partial result took a turn on Monday (8), when Sánchez numerically surpassed Keiko with 93.9% of the votes counted.  Although the count is approaching 100% of the ballots counted, the National Elections Juror (JNE), Peru's highest electoral authority, stated that the definitive results should only be finalized in “mid-July”. This is because a new mandatory mechanism for recounting votes in tables that showed some inconsistency was added to the counting process. The JNE reports that, to date, 1,300 minutes “under observation” have been received.  Keiko x Sánchez Roberto Sánchez and Keiko Fujimori are competing for the presidential term in Peru for the five-year period from 2026 to 2031. The winner will be the ninth president of the South American country in ten years of political crisis. Since 2016, two presidents have resigned and four have been dismissed by the Peruvian parliament, considered the de facto power in the country. Daughter of former dictator Alberto Fujimori, convicted of human rights violations, which included forced sterilization of indigenous women, Keiko lost in the last three elections in the 2nd round, in 2011, 2016 and 2021. On the other side, there is Roberto Sánchez, an ally of former president Pedro Castillo, who was dismissed, arrested and convicted of an attempted coup d'état when trying to dissolve Parliament. For his supporters, Castillo was the victim of a coup by the Legislature for representing the country's rural and indigenous vote. A psychologist by training, Sánchez is a federal deputy for the Todos pelo Peru party, having been Castillo's minister. As soon as he voted on Sunday (7) in Lima, Sánchez went to the Barbadillo prison, where Castillo is being held, remaining there until the first partial results were released.