LIMA — On Sunday night, with Peru’s presidential runoff still too close to call, Roberto Sánchez stood before supporters in central Lima and repeated the promise that has defined his entire campaign: if he wins, Pedro Castillo goes free.
Following the quick count results that placed him in a technical tie with Keiko Fujimori, Sánchez reiterated his commitment to granting freedom to Pedro Castillo, who was convicted for attempting to dissolve Congress — a crime Sánchez has consistently characterized as a “complot golpista,” or coup conspiracy, against a legitimate president.
Sánchez has reaffirmed his promise to pardon Castillo on multiple occasions throughout the campaign, calling the freedom of the former president the “vindication of justice for Peru” — even as Castillo stands convicted of conspiring against the democratic order.
The pledge is not rhetorical. It is the organizational spine of Sánchez’s candidacy — the promise around which his rural base, his political identity, and his entire electoral strategy are constructed. Understanding what it means in practice requires understanding who Pedro Castillo is, what he did, and what it would actually take to undo a conviction that Peru’s own courts handed down.
Who Is Pedro Castillo
Pedro Castillo was a former teacher and union leader from Peru’s rural north who won the 2021 presidential election in a razor-thin runoff against Keiko Fujimori — the same Fujimori now running against Sánchez. A left-leaning, socially conservative politician, Castillo had faced up to 34 years in prison at his sentencing.
His presidency lasted fifteen turbulent months. Castillo was removed from office and jailed just 15 months into his presidency after an illegal and failed attempt to dissolve Congress, govern by decree, and overhaul Peru’s justice system. The attempt — delivered in a televised address on December 7, 2022 — was characterized by prosecutors as a self-coup, an attempt to sidestep a third impeachment hearing by dismantling the legislature he faced.
Congress voted for his removal the same day. He was arrested before he could seek asylum in the Mexican Embassy. A court in Peru sentenced Castillo to 11 years, 5 months, and 15 days in prison in November 2025 for seeking to dissolve Congress.
Why He Remains a Powerful Symbol
To his supporters — concentrated in Peru’s rural highlands and Amazon regions, historically marginalized from Lima’s political and economic elite — Castillo’s imprisonment is not justice. It is confirmation of a pattern they have lived their entire lives: a system that criminalizes leaders from poor, Indigenous, and rural backgrounds while protecting those who serve the interests of Lima’s establishment.
Sánchez defines himself openly as the “castillista presidential candidate” — adopting Castillo’s signature straw hat and his political path as deliberate symbols of continuity with the rural, Indigenous base that powered Castillo’s 2021 victory.
He calls for Castillo’s release and presents him as a popular symbol — turning memory into momentum across the rural communities that form the backbone of his electoral coalition.
Sánchez’s campaign has centered on defending the former president’s freedom, as many Peruvians believe Castillo has been unjustly imprisoned and see his case as symbolizing the racism and discrimination faced by rural and Indigenous Peruvians at the hands of the country’s political elite.
That argument — whatever its legal merits — is politically potent. It is the reason Sánchez made it out of a 36-candidate first-round field. It is the reason the rural vote that came in late on Sunday night shifted the count in his direction. And it is the reason that, if he wins, he will arrive at the presidential palace with Castillo’s release as his most prominent unfinished promise.
What Freeing Castillo Actually Requires
The legal mechanics of releasing Castillo are more complicated than the campaign rhetoric suggests. Castillo is not a pretrial detainee — he is a convicted prisoner serving an 11.5-year sentence handed down by Peru’s own courts in November 2025.
Freeing him would require one of two legal paths.
The first is a presidential pardon. Under Peru’s constitution, the president holds the power of pardon — including for crimes against the state. Sánchez has used the word “indulto” — pardon — in multiple campaign statements, suggesting this is his intended mechanism.
The second is a constitutional assembly. Sánchez has also campaigned on creating a new constitution — a promise that would require a constituent assembly and that, if achieved, could theoretically restructure the legal framework under which Castillo was tried and convicted.
Both paths face significant obstacles. A presidential pardon of a man convicted of attempting to dissolve Congress would immediately trigger a constitutional crisis — the opposition-controlled legislature would challenge it, Peru’s judiciary would likely contest it, and the international community, including Washington, would respond with alarm.
One political analyst predicted that, in the event of a Sánchez government, he would become a “hostage” of the radical groups to whom he owes his political ascent — with Castillo’s release as the first and most immediate debt to be called in.
The Institutional Stakes
Peru is a country that has already cycled through nine presidents in a decade. Its institutions — the judiciary, the electoral authority, the congress — have been under sustained pressure from every direction. A presidential pardon of a man convicted of attempting to destroy those same institutions would represent a challenge to the post-Castillo democratic settlement that Peru’s establishment, military, and international partners would resist strenuously.
Sánchez served as trade and tourism minister under Castillo — he was inside the government when the December 7 self-coup attempt occurred. His proximity to that moment, and his insistence on characterizing it as a conspiracy rather than an attempted autogolpe, places him in direct conflict with the conclusions of Peru’s own courts.
What happens on the day a new president signs a pardon for his convicted predecessor — and what Peru’s other institutions do in response — would test the country’s democratic resilience in ways it has not been tested since 2022.
The count is still ongoing. The outcome is still uncertain. But the promise is not: if Roberto Sánchez wins, he has told Peru and the world exactly what he intends to do first.
