A gruff, polarizing retired army officer who courted Peru's poor and terrified its rich with promises to distribute the country's wealth more fairly appears headed for a presidential runoff.
Ollanta Humala, 43, called on "all Peruvians" after Sunday's vote to "join up with this movement to transform Peru."
But a breathtakingly close battle for second place left unanswered whom Humala would face -- pro-business former congresswoman Lourdes Flores or Alan Garcia, a center-left ex-president.
Peru's elections authority said official results with 52.7 percent of the vote counted weren't an accurate enough reflection of the national will.
Analysts put greater trust in an unofficial vote sample from the respected election watchdog group Transparencia.
It gave Humala 29.9 percent of the vote, with Flores barely edging Garcia with 24.4 percent to 24.3 percent, respectively. The projection was based on results from 928 voting tables and had an error margin of less than 1 percent.
Since no single candidate won a majority on Sunday, the top two vote-getters will meet in late May or early June in a runoff.
The partial official results gave Humala 27.8 percent of the vote against 26.3 percent for Flores and 25.6 percent for Garcia.
But that tally, which was suspended late on Sunday and resumed yesterday, tended toward urban areas where Flores' support is strongest.
Humala's political base is the country's Indian and mestizo majority, especially Quechua-speaking highlanders who've been discriminated against for centuries by the country's European-descended political elite.
Garcia's backing, by contrast, is equally divided among city and country, his Aprista party the country's best organized.
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