MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Peru: Humala still waits for run-off opponent

An already thin margin of votes narrowed further between a center-left former president and pro-business former congresswoman to fewer than 110,000 ballots yesterday, as Peruvians waited to see who will face nationalist Ollanta Humala in a presidential runoff.

Former President Alan García maintained his second-place position in the results from the April 9 election with 24.4 percent, leading attorney Lourdes Flores by slightly less than 1 percentage point.

The candidates were separated by 108,318 ballots ? 3,824 fewer than on Friday night ? with more than 89 percent of votes tallied.

Because no candidate won a majority, either García, 56, or Flores, 46, will advance to a runoff in late May or June against Humala, a 43-year-old populist retired army officer who identifies with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

Humala was the top vote-getter last Sunday, with 31 percent.

Election officials said yesterday that some ballots were still arriving from isolated rural areas, where Humala enjoys strong support.

But a final outcome was expected to take up to two weeks to deliver because of more than 7,700 vote-tally sheets ? representing about 8.5 percent of the total ballot, or about 1.5 million votes ? that have been held up by legal challenges, arithmetic errors and technical problems.

Those disputed sheets are now in the hands of special committees of the National Election Board, which will rule on whether they are added to the count.

Most of the 250,000 ballots cast by Peruvians living abroad also remained uncounted. Early results indicated support leaning heavily toward Flores among expatriates.

García's Aprista party yesterday announced it would drop a request to annul about 50,000 ballots cast in Miami and Madrid, Spain, because of alleged irregularities.