Leftist ex-soldier Ollanta Humala led the first round for Peru’s presidency yesterday as Keiko Fujimori, daughter of the jailed former president, and liberal Pedro Pablo Kuczynski fought to join him in a runoff.
Humala, 48, who just missed out on the 2006 presidency, won 27.6 percent of the vote, according to the electoral authority’s count of just over half of the ballots at midnight.
“Everything leads us to believe that we’ll be in the second round,” Humala told his supporters earlier, asking them to meet him on July 28, the date of the presidential handover, for “a big change, a big redistribution of riches.”
On the opposite side of the political spectrum, Kuczynski, a 72-year-old former World Bank economist, was second with 23.1 percent, and right-wing Fujimori, 35, had 22 percent, rising slightly as more votes were counted.
Exit polls and first estimates placed Fujimori second and she announced to a crowd of orange-clad supporters: “We’re in the second round.”
With emotions running high, officials called for caution since a clear picture could take several days to emerge. A candidate needs more than half the vote to win outright.
Almost 20 million people were obliged to vote to replace -Peruvian President Alain Garcia, with a fairer division of the nation’s booming economy — backed by rich mineral resources — a key issue for more than a third of the population still living in poverty.
If Fujimori took second place, Peru would face a battle between the election’s two most polarizing candidates, a left-wing nationalist who rivals liken to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and the daughter of an ex-strongman who many fear would influence her rule from behind bars.
“It would be really bad if that happened,” said 21-year-old student Yasmina Medrano, as she voted in Lima in her first ever election, choosing Kuczynski for his “experience.”
Humala has brushed up his image in his second bid to take power.
He sought to reassure nervous investors with promises of careful fiscal policy, respect for free trade deals and no plans to seek re-election, turning away from his former mentor Chavez toward the more moderate model of Brazil.
Fujimori benefits from die-hard supporters of her father — the iron-fisted former president of the 1990s now jailed for human rights abuses during a clampdown on leftist guerrillas, but also remembered for reining in hyperinflation.
Her experience includes her public role as Peru’s “first lady” at age 19 following her parents’ divorce and many fear she will try to free her father if elected.
Kuczynski overtook centrist former favorite and former -president Alejandro Toledo during the campaign with support from Lima’s elite, a savvy Internet campaign and late backing from the ruling APRA party that has no candidate and said it wished to help a “candidate with democratic convictions” reach the second round in June.
Many moderate voters said they saw Kuczynski as the best chance to avoid a head-to-head between Fujimori and Humala.
Toledo, who had 15.1 percent in the latest results, said the choice between those two would be “between a dark past and a leap into the dark.”
The compulsory national vote was also for the 130 lawmakers in the unicameral Congress, which was set to remain fragmented.
Under Peruvian law, Garcia was unable to stand for a second consecutive term.
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