Tight race as Peruvians head to polls
Print Edition
PERUVIANS yesterday voted in a close-fought election on whether Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of an ex-president jailed for crimes against humanity, will be their new leader.
Last-minute polls showed Fujimori, 41, tied with her center-right rival, former Wall Street banker Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, 77.
Polling stations opened at 1300 GMT under cloudy skies in the capital Lima and across the country of 30 million people.
The election has forced voters to confront the South American nation’s dark past.
Many mistrust Keiko Fujimori because her father Alberto is in jail for corruption and the slaughter of alleged terrorists in the 1990s.
Others hope she will, like him, take a tough line on security to fight a wave of violent crime.
Both have vowed to heal divisions dating to a 1980-2000 civil conflict involving leftist insurgents.
“I want to be president of Peru to work for change... to build a great, prosperous country that is united and reconciled,” Fujimori told supporters at her closing campaign rally late on Thursday. “With the support of all of you, I will have the honor of becoming Peru’s first woman president.”
Kuczynski, a flute-playing economist, stressed his long experience as a banker and former minister.
“We will not have to read the instruction manual, because we know what must be done,” he told supporters.
“I am old, but my noggin and my experience are still working.”
Both candidates are right-leaning, US-educated politicians.
Fujimori and her Popular Force party are seen as more populist. Kuczynski has ties to international business and finance.
Fujimori is the granddaughter of Japanese immigrants. Kuczynski is the son of a German doctor who treated lepers in the Amazon jungle.
Polls on Saturday showed Fujimori had lost her earlier lead. The two candidates were locked in a technical tie.
A survey conducted by Ipsos gave Kuczynski 50.4 percent of the vote to 49.6 percent for Kuczynski.
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