Right-wing lawmaker Keiko Fujimori may be pulling away from leftist Ollanta Humala 10 days before Peru’s June 5 presidential run-off and a gaffe by a top aide has not hurt her, a poll showed on Thursday.
Fujimori, who is backed by the business community and is the daughter of imprisoned former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, had the support of 52.9 percent of respondents, the pollster Datum said.
Humala, a former military officer, had 47.1 percent support when null and spoiled mock ballots were excluded in a simulated vote organized by pollsters, according to the nationwide survey published in newspaper Peru 21.
Photo: Reuters
The poll of 1,214 people conducted on Sunday had a margin of error of 2.8 points. Fujimori’s lead widened by about a single point to 5.8 points from the previous poll conducted from May 16 to May 18.
EXECUTIONS
Datum said Fujimori was not hurt in the latest poll by comments made last week by an aide, Jorge Trelles, who said her father’s administration executed people without trials during a crackdown on insurgents in the 1990s, but that it “killed less” than two previous governments battling guerrillas.
His comments caused an uproar in the local media, which said they proved her party has yet to show contrition for death squads unleashed by the elder Fujimori on suspected leftists during a conflict that killed nearly 70,000 people. The younger Fujimori said the comments were “unfortunate.”
Her father, who was credited with opening the economy and ending hyperinflation, was sentenced to 25 years in prison after he left office for corruption and human rights crimes.
The younger Fujimori, who says she will ensure the poor get a share of the country’s growing economy, also picked up endorsements on Thursday from two candidates she defeated in the first-round vote on April 10: former Peruvian prime minister Pedro Pablo Kuczynksi and former Lima Mayor Luis Castaneda.
Former Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo, who had been favored to win the race before faltering in the first-round, threw his weight behind Humala, though pollsters say most voters have already decided who they will support.
Humala has sought to convince voters he has abandoned his radical past, although critics fear that if elected he might roll back years of free-market reforms in Peru’s booming economy.
Humala has also revised his government plan to make it more attractive to investors, dropping a controversial tax increase and a proposal to take over private pension funds.
‘MODERATE’
To woo centrists, he has tried with limited success to distance himself from his former political mentor, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and recast himself as a moderate like popular former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
However, Humala, who once led a bloodless insurrection against the elder Fujimori, has been dogged by his past in polls. His brother and father are two well-known Peruvian radicals.
El Comercio newspaper ran an article on Thursday that it said provided new evidence allegedly tying Humala to human rights crimes carried out in the 1990s, when his army unit was battling Shining Path rebels in the jungle. He has repeatedly denied the allegations.
The Datum poll said half of all voters think Humala might govern as an authoritarian and only a third said he would respect Peru’s international accords, even though he has promised to be conciliatory and honor the country’s many free-trade agreements.
Fujimori has overtaken him in recent weeks in opinion polls, relieving downward pressure on financial markets. Peru’s stocks and currency plunged after Humala won the first-round vote on April 10. Stocks were 2.8 percent higher on Thursday and the sol hovered near a three-year high of 2.749 to the US dollar.
Fujimori’s opponents say she is too close to her father and too reliant on his former aides. Her father’s government collapsed in 2000.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not