Turnout: 73.81%
About this election
Peru held congressional elections on 12 April 2026, at the same time as the first round of the presidential election. Voters elected 130 members of the Chamber of Deputies and 60 senators to a newly restored upper house. Fuerza Popular (FP), the right-wing party of Keiko Fujimori, emerged as the largest force in both chambers, winning 41 seats in the Chamber and 22 in the Senate. The left-wing Juntos por el Peru (JP) of Roberto Sanchez was the main rival with 32 deputies and 14 senators, followed by several smaller parties. Turnout was 73.81%. No party came close to a majority, pointing to another fragmented and conflict-prone Congress.
Peru's politics has been in chronic crisis: the country went through six presidents in the decade before 2026, amid a relentless cycle of impeachments, resignations and confrontations between the executive and a powerful Congress. The 2026 general election, held under the caretaker presidency that followed Pedro Castillo's removal and Dina Boluarte's troubled tenure, was seen as a chance to reset the institutional framework — above all through the return of a two-chamber legislature.
Both chambers are elected by proportional representation using the d'Hondt method, with a 5% national threshold for a party to win seats. The 130-seat Chamber of Deputies is chosen from multi-member constituencies across the country's regions; the 60-seat Senate combines a nationwide tier with district-based seats. The president is elected separately by two-round majority vote, so a president can — and usually does — face a Congress controlled by rival parties.
The most significant change in 2026 was the restoration of the Senate, re-establishing a two-chamber Congress for the first time since 1990. The upper house had been abolished under Alberto Fujimori's 1993 constitution, which created a single chamber. Notably, Peruvian voters had actually rejected a return to bicameralism in a 2018 referendum; the second chamber was nonetheless brought back through constitutional reforms later passed by Congress, taking effect for this election — a move supporters framed as strengthening checks and balances and critics saw as Congress entrenching its own power.
The field was crowded and largely personality-driven. Fuerza Popular (Keiko Fujimori) anchors the right; Juntos por el Peru (Roberto Sanchez) the left. Other significant forces included Renovacion Popular (Rafael Lopez Aliaga), the Partido del Buen Gobierno (Jorge Nieto), the Partido Civico OBRAS (Ricardo Belmont) and Ahora Nacion (Alfonso Lopez-Chau), several of them new vehicles built around individual leaders rather than durable party organisations.
In the Chamber of Deputies, Fuerza Popular led with 41 seats, ahead of Juntos por el Peru (32), the Partido del Buen Gobierno (18), Renovacion Popular (15), OBRAS (14) and Ahora Nacion (10). The Senate broke down similarly: Fuerza Popular 22, Juntos por el Peru 14, Renovacion Popular 8, the Partido del Buen Gobierno 7, OBRAS 5 and Ahora Nacion 4. With seats dispersed among at least six parties in each chamber, no bloc holds a majority.
The composition guarantees that the next president — whether from the right or the left, to be decided in the June run-off — will have to govern with a divided legislature in which Fuerza Popular is the largest but far from dominant party. Given Peru's recent history, in which Congress has repeatedly clashed with and removed presidents, the fragmented 2026 result raised the prospect of further executive-legislative confrontation rather than stability.
Because the congressional vote was held alongside the presidential first round, the two results are closely intertwined. Fuerza Popular's strong legislative showing, combined with Keiko Fujimori's advance to the presidential run-off, pointed toward a powerful role for the party in the next Congress regardless of who ultimately wins the presidency.
The 2021 elections had produced a fragmented single-chamber Congress alongside Pedro Castillo's narrow presidential win; the bitter conflict between them ended in Castillo's impeachment and removal in December 2022. The 2026 vote, with its restored Senate and again-splintered party system, reset the institutional stage while leaving the underlying pattern of fragmentation — and the potential for instability — firmly in place.
The new bicameral Congress convenes for the 2026-2031 term and will define its relationship with whoever wins the presidential run-off. With Fuerza Popular the largest party but no bloc near a majority, and with a restored Senate adding a second chamber to the institutional machinery, much depends on whether the parties choose cooperation or the confrontation that has repeatedly toppled presidents. The return of the upper house is meant to temper that instability, but its effect will only become clear in practice.
ONPE (National Office of Electoral Processes) / JNE (National Elections Jury) — onpe.gob.pe.
En español: Elecciones al Congreso del Perú 2026 (Cámara de Diputados y Senado) — resultados oficiales de la ONPE, escaños por partido y mapa de resultados por región en ElectioMap.
Compiled and reviewed by Bartłomiej Paruzel, Election Data Analyst, from official results. See our data methodology.