The 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
Martín 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, 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. who 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 a self-coup, dissolving Congress as well as the Judiciary bodies, imposing a
curfew, and establishing an
emergency government. He was 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". 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 right-wing majority in 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 massacres. 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 Jerí succeeded Boluarte, initially assumed the presidency leading into the 2026 elections. Jerí became Peru's seventh president in nine years. However, in February 2026, José Jerí was 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 María 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 bills 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, 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 president also cannot dissolve the upper house of Congress, granting that body a large amount of power. ==Electoral system==