MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Humala claims victory in Peruvian presidential run-off

The nationalist former Army officer celebrates with supporters

The nationalist former Army officer Ollanta Humala claimed victory in Peru’s presidential election run-off as he clung to a lead of about 20,000 votes over Congresswoman Keiko Fujimori.

“The election results indicate, in the quick count and official results, that we have won the presidential elections,” Humala told reporters in Lima before heading to a rally with supporters. “Nevertheless we will continue to follow the information until the official proclamation of the results.”

Fujimori had yet to concede defeat after Peru’s electoral commission showed Humala with 50.1% of votes to 49.9%. About 78% of ballots were counted, most of them in Lima and urban areas where support for Fujimori was strongest. A quick count at selected polling stations nationwide by Ipsos-Apoyo, a Lima-based researcher, favoured Humala by 2.8 percentage points.

Fujimori, before the first results were made public six hours after polls closed, urged her supporters to remain calm. “If the official results confirm the quick count I will be the first to accept those results,” she told supporters gathered in Lima.

Slow to be counted were ballots cast in rural areas, where support for Humala is strongest, and votes by Peruvians living abroad, where Fujimori was winning by more than a two-to-one margin. Peruvians abroad make up between 2 percent and 3 percent of the electorate, according to Ipsos-Apoyo.

Both candidates, after running populist campaigns in the first round, vow to maintain policies that have made Peru’s economy the fastest-growing in Latin America in the past decade. Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a former finance minister who supported Fujimori, said a likely Humala victory won’t spell disaster for Peru.

“I don’t see such a great danger. I don’t see a hecatomb,” Kuczynski said in comments to Lima-based America Television. “The big, big question of this election is how a country growing at full speed, without inflation, ended up voting for a radical.”

Each candidate has been dogged by their past. Even though Humala abandoned his support for Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, stocks swung wildly last week on speculation backing for Humala was growing. Fujimori apologized for her father Alberto Fujimori’s crimes and ruled out a possible pardon for him amid voter concerns her victory may revive the corruption and authoritarian rule associated with his 10-year presidency that ended in 2000.

Investors dumped Peruvian assets after Humala topped the field in the first round of voting April 10, with 32% of votes compared with Fujimori’s 24%, on concern he would boost state control of the economy if elected.