Elections 2026: more than 25 lists could compete for the Mayor of Lima after key milestone in the schedule

At 11:59 p.m. this Wednesday, August 5, three key milestones in the electoral schedule for the 2026 Regional and Municipal Elections (ERM 2026) concluded simultaneously. For the Special Electoral Juries (JEE), the deadline to publish the lists of admitted candidates expired. For the candidates, the deadline to submit their resignation and officially leave the race ended. And for political organizations, the deadline to request the withdrawal of their candidate lists expired. This marks a turning point in the schedule and, in turn, triggers new moves on the electoral board, just 60 days before the elections on October 4.

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These milestones are provided for in both the Municipal Elections Law and the Regional Elections Law, as Jorge Valdivia, spokesperson for the National Jury of Elections (JNE), explained to El Comercio. For practical purposes, it is a point of no return in the electoral race.

“These are deadlines; once the milestone has passed, you cannot revert to the previous stage. That is, for example, regarding withdrawals or resignations, political organizations and candidates will no longer be able to resign or withdraw. Requests may be submitted, but they will obviously be declared inadmissible because that deadline has already passed,” Valdivia detailed.

In this context, a preliminary balance obtained by this newspaper showed that, by the end of Wednesday afternoon, 592 resignation requests from candidates for various positions nationwide had been submitted, although the final figure would be higher once the deadline officially closed before midnight.

Among these resignations is that of Luis Rubio, who the day before had resigned from his candidacy for Mayor of Lima for Renovación Popular. If that political organization obtains the necessary votes, the position would fall to its candidate for lieutenant mayor, Rafael López Aliaga. Rubio’s resignation has already been accepted by the JEE of Lima Centro.

Another resignation was recorded in Perú Libre. Rubén Ramírez, former minister during Pedro Castillo’s government, resigned from his candidacy alleging a lack of “guarantees of due process” in the elections.

In this case, the list of candidates was admitted with the candidacy for first councilor left blank, so if it obtains a favorable vote, the next on the list would assume the position.

However, facing the expiration of these preclusive milestones, an agreement adopted by the Plenary of the National Jury of Elections (JNE) plays a decisive role. In practice, it prevents lists that did not yet have a first-instance resolution from being excluded from the process solely due to the expiration of the legal deadline established in the regulation.

The agreement was published on Tuesday, ahead of the imminent expiration of this milestone and, as indicated, in order to “safeguard the right of citizens to participate in political life as candidates in popular election processes.”

Therefore, by agreement of the Plenary, the 91 JEEs deployed nationwide are instructed to publish, by August 5 at the latest, “the admitted candidate formulas and lists and those whose decision had not become final by that date.” This, as indicated, without prejudice to continuing the oversight process later.

“Without prejudice to the corresponding oversight; which implies the obligation to continue reviewing the information submitted by political organizations and that which is collected for oversight purposes and, if applicable, to process the exclusion files ex officio of candidates who have impediments to run that may arise as a result of the oversight carried out or documentation received from the Judiciary after the August 5 milestone,” the agreement states.

According to the JNE spokesperson, “the agreement does not change the rules, but rather reaffirms the legal milestone” of August 5 as the deadline to publish all lists. Thus, lists that could not be qualified for some reason may be admitted and published according to the established deadline, without prejudice to any subsequent ruling.

It is important to understand that the expiration of this legal milestone on August 5 does not uniformly cover all registration files in bulk, as each list is analyzed independently in the electoral system, both in first and second instance, if applicable.

Once a list of candidates is admitted and published, the next step for each is the three-calendar-day challenge period; the second step in the entire process.

“This is only a deadline, but many lists or formulas have been qualified and admitted much earlier. So, from the moment that admission is published, the three-day challenge period begins. Only for those published last will the three-day challenge period start upon publication,” Valdivia pointed out.

In this context, in the case of Metropolitan Lima, most lists had already been admitted days earlier [see graphic], but in the last hours four new files appeared in the system, corresponding to APRA, Progresemos, the Electoral Alliance Venceremos, and Alliance for Progress.

With this, the number of organizations with possibilities of reaching the Mayor of Lima rose to 26 at the close of this report. However, not all will retain a candidacy for the metropolitan seat as such.

In the case of APRA, Mónica Yaya, former president of the Supervisory Agency for State Contracting (OSCE), is running for Mayor of Lima. In the case of Progresemos, businessman Luis Miguel Llanos Carrillo is a candidate; and in the case of Venceremos, rapper Juan Carlos Alvarado Mestanza is running. Meanwhile, Alliance for Progress (APP) is running lawyer Elio Riera as a candidate for the Lima municipality.

At the close of this report, only the list headed by Alvarado Mestanza had been declared admitted and published by the JEE Lima Centro, while the other three candidacies were still in process. The deadline for their definition expired at 11:59 p.m.

Regarding the other formulas, the one with the most advanced process is Renovación Popular, whose list has already been declared registered and is officially in the race.

On the other hand, twenty others have already been partially admitted and published, of which two do not have a head of the list for different reasons; while the list of Democratic Integrity was declared inadmissible in the first instance, although the matter has been taken to the JNE plenary.

The closing of this deadline does not explicitly imply that the public can already know the definitive universe of candidates that will appear on the ballot, as there are still stages to go through and the political menu can keep moving.

“We will definitely know the registered candidacies on September 5. Why? Because until August 20, the JEEs can resolve challenges and exclusions. And that can vary. And the JNE plenary has until September 4 to resolve all appeals, so it is only on September 5 that we will definitively know which candidacies are registered,” Valdivia asserted.