Ex-Wall Street banker Pedro Pablo Kuczynski has won the majority of votes with all ballots counted in Peru’s photo-finish presidential election, officials said Thursday, but the final result will depend on a handful of challenged ballots.
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But only just: his margin of victory over Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of a jailed ex-president, was fewer than 40,000 votes out of 17m, or barely 0.2%.
Peru, a nation of 31 million people, is one of Latin America’s fastest-growing economies, and both candidates are right-leaning, market-friendly, US-educated politicians. “But we are respectful of the (electoral) institutions and we will wait until the counting process reaches 100 percent”, said his running mate, Martin Vizcarra. Many South American countries have long struggled with corruption, coups, and authoritarian leaders; perhaps Kuczynski would be a breath of fresh air for Peru.
A move to lighten Fujimori’s sentence by putting him on house arrest would likely spark widespread outrage from the movement that repeatedly waged mass protests against Keiko’s bid for president and her father’s brutal legacy.
Since the vote Fujimori has visited her campaign headquarters daily, and some supporters have claimed that she has been the victim of fraud and demanded a recount.
It cautioned, however, that thousands of unclear votes from Sunday’s run-off still had to be examined by electoral scrutineers.
Presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori waves to the press as she leaves of her home in Lima, Peru, Wednesday, June 8, 2016. But she never acknowledged he committed any crimes. Fujimori has yet to concede defeat.
Kuczynski has promised to ensure every town has piped water while cleaning up endemic corruption in the Andean country where one in five Peruvians still live in poverty despite almost two decades of uninterrupted economic growth.
A former prime minister and the son of European immigrants, Kuczynski is liberal on social issues and favours same sex civil unions.
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But it wasn’t his platform that won him the election, rather a unified opposition determined to keep Fujimori out of power.
