Peru Vote Shaped By Ex-Leader's Legacy Goes Down to Wire

"We still have to wait" for the official results, said Hernan Chaparro, the director of GfK polling company in Peru

Peru's presidential election was in a dead heat late Sunday with a former World Bank economist apparently leading the daughter of imprisoned ex-President Alberto Fujimori in a vote seen as a referendum on the disgraced strongman's legacy. 

But with the results of two quick counts of the ballots showing that Pedro Pablo Kuczynski's narrow lead over Keiko Fujimori was within their statistical margin for error it was too close to call the election. 

Throngs of cheering supporters waving red-and-white Peruvian flags mobbed Kuczysnki's car as he left his home for his campaign headquarters after the quick count results were released. Meanwhile, supporters of Fujimori put on a brave face, allowing themselves to be entertained by a band while awaiting results expected later Sunday. 

"We still have to wait" for the official results, said Hernan Chaparro, the director of GfK polling company in Peru. 

In its quick count, pollster Ipsos-Apoyo said Kuczynski would get about 50.5 percent of the votes, compared with 49.5 percent for Fujimori. GfK showed Kuczynski winning by 1.6 points. Both counts had a plus-or-minus 1 percentage point margin for error. 

A potential swing vote in a close race could be the 885,000 Peruvians eligible to vote abroad — about 3.8 percent of the electorate. Ipsos' quick count results account for the foreign vote. 

Keiko Fujimori had won the first round of voting by a 20-percentage point margin but her wide lead over the 77-year-old Kuczynski melted away in the days before Sunday's runoff vote. 

It would be a stunning turnaround for the ex-World Bank economist, who managed to narrow the lead by abandoning his above-the-fray, grandfatherly appeal and hitting Fujimori hard. 

"Peru is on the threshold of becoming a narco-state," the 77-year-old candidate, who supported Fujimori in the 2011 runoff won by outgoing President Ollanta Humala, told supporters at his closing campaign rally in Lima. 

The reference wasn't just to Alberto Fujimori's well-known ties to corruption, organized crime and death squads, for which he's serving a 25-year jail sentence, but an attempt to draw attention to a string of scandals that have hobbled Fujimori in the final stretch, most notably a report that one of her big fundraisers and the secretary general of her party is the target of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration investigation. Peru is the world's largest producer of cocaine. 

Her running mate, Jose Chlimper, a Cabinet member at the end of Alberto Fujimori's government, is also in hot water for orchestrating the broadcast of a doctored audio tape in an attempt to clear the name of the party boss. 

"If Fujimori wins the big question is whether she'll be able to control her party," Eduardo Dargent, a political scientist at Lima's Catholic University, said prior to the voting. 

PPK, as Kuczynski is almost universally known in Peru, is also benefiting from a last-minute endorsement by the third-place finisher in the first round of voting, leftist congresswoman Veronika Mendoza, the protagonist of a massive anti-Fujimori demonstration this week the likes of which Peru hasn't seen since the turbulent end of Fujimori's rule 16 years ago. 

Fujimori, who served as first lady in her father's administration after her parents' divorce, has tried to contain her rival's rise by taking distance from her father's crimes, even signing a pledge not to pardon him if elected. 

"I'm the candidate, not my father," she has frequently repeated. 

At the same time, she's vowed to bring back the "iron hand" style of government for which many still revere the elder Fujimori, who is credited with taming Maoist Shining Path rebels as well as the country's hyperinflation. Instead of rebels, Keiko Fujimori is promising to wield an iron fist against crime, a top voter concern. Among her proposals: build jails in high-altitude prisons in the Andes to punish and isolate dangerous criminals. 

She's also trying to cast her rival, the son of a Jewish-Polish immigrant who is married to an American and spent decades in business outside Peru, as part of the white elite establishment that has traditionally overlooked the needs of the poor. 

Regardless of who wins, Keiko Fujimori has already reshaped Peru's political landscape. 

In April, her Popular Force party won 73 of 130 seats in the unicameral congress, setting Fujimori up to be the first president since her father in the 1990s to govern with a legislative majority. Her detractors say that's a risk to Peru's already-weak system of checks and balances.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
Contact Us