LIMA – “If you don’t meet our demands, we will kill your drivers.” This message, demanding about $15,000, was sent by a criminal gang to a bus company in a poor suburb of Peru’s capital, Lima. It preceded an armed attack on bus driver Toño. “They shot me in the legs and abdomen. I was out of work for four months, now I work with fear. Although my wounds are dry, internally I feel pain,” he says.
Toño’s case was one of nearly 30,000 extortion incidents reported in Peru in 2025, many targeting small businesses or transport workers. This issue, along with rising homicides, is why insecurity and crime have become top concerns for voters in Sunday’s presidential election in Peru.
Presidential candidates offer contrasting approaches
The right-wing Keiko Fujimori, daughter of the late former president Alberto Fujimori, is running for a fourth time against left-wing Roberto Sánchez. Fujimori has defined her campaign with an array of “tough-on-crime” policies, while Sánchez has promised sweeping changes to the state and higher public spending.
In Lima’s suburb of San Juan de Lurigancho, dusty hilltop neighbourhoods sprawl precariously down the slopes. Armed police guard the gate to the bus depot where Toño works. They say this is Lima’s worst district for extortion. Toño, who now drives with plain-clothed armed police on board for his protection, wants whoever the next president is to have a “strong hand against crime”. According to an independent observatory of crime and violence, 239 drivers were killed last year. “I’ve never been so afraid to leave my young children. If I had money, I’d leave the country,” he says.
Impact on transport workers
Eiffel Calla, head of security at the depot, says five drivers from their company have been attacked. One was killed, another was left in a vegetative state. Fears of insecurity have driven other Latin American nations further right in recent elections, boosting leaders who promise a hardline approach to law and order.
At a Fujimori rally, supporter Piero argues a heavy-handed approach to insecurity is “sorely lacking in these times” and describes Peru as “overflowing” with crime. Another, Janeth, says “for economy stability, we choose Keiko Fujimori”.
Economic stability versus reform
Despite having churned through eight presidents in the last 10 years, Peru’s economy has remained relatively stable. It is a major exporter of critical minerals and metals such as copper. Fujimori’s supporters pit her free market approach to the economy and pledge to attract more US investment against Sánchez’s proposals to review mining contracts, increase some corporate taxes, raise the minimum wage and give the state more control over natural resources – ideas that have unsettled financial markets.
Sánchez argues Peru’s wealth originating from its natural resources doesn’t reach ordinary people or the often rural communities where a lot of mining takes place.
