Fujimori gains ground in election

The nail-biter race to become Peru's next president tightened as the daughter of imprisoned ex-president Alberto Fujimori gained ground on her rival thanks to a larger haul of votes trickling in from remote rural areas and embassies abroad.

Former World Bank economist Pedro Pablo Kuczysnki's razor-thin lead over Keiko Fujimori shrank to fewer than 51,000 votes on Tuesday. With tallies from nearly 97 percent of polling stations processed, Kuczynski had 50.1 percent of the votes compared with Fujimori's 49.8 percent.

While two quick counts showed Kuczynski prevailing in a tight contest, still to be counted are the ballots of 885,000 Peruvians eligible to vote abroad, the majority living in the United States, and who turned out massively for Fujimori in the 2011 election.

Doubts expressed

About 1,200 handwritten tallies of some 360,000 votes were being disputed and were sent to a special electoral board for review, Mariano Cucho, the head of Peru's electoral authority, told RPP Radio on Tuesday.

Both candidates remained silent while awaiting final results even as their aides began to jockey for positions in an eventual alliance in congress, where Fujimori's Popular Force won a solid majority of 73 of 130 seats. Kuczynski's fledgling movement will have just 18, fewer than even the country's main leftist alliance.

While Kuczynski's campaign said it is ready to work with all political groups, supporters of Fujimori expressed doubt that the wounds from the final stretch of the campaign, in which Kuczynski accused Keiko Fujimori of being the harbinger of a "narco-state," could be easily healed.

(China Daily 06/08/2016 page11)