Peruvians to elect new president

Peru is voting for a new president on Sunday after one of the most unpredictable and tightly-contested campaigns in recent history.

The front-runner is a left-wing former army officer, Ollanta Humala, but he is not expected to win the 50% required for outright victory.

Four other candidates have a realistic chance of getting through to a run-off.

They include Keiko Fujimori, daughter of the disgraced former President Alberto Fujimori.

Also in contention are former President Alejandro Toledo and former Prime Minister Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, as well as Luis Castaneda, a former mayor of the capital, Lima.

Outgoing President Alan Garcia cannot stand for a second term and his Apra party has not put forward a candidate.

Peru is enjoying an economic boom and the campaign has focused on how to maintain growth while tackling widespread poverty.

Opinions polls have fluctuated wildly in the run-up to the vote.

Left-turn?

Ollanta Humala, 48, who came second to Alan Garcia in 2006, has campaigned on a promise to increase the state's role in the economy and redistribute wealth to Peru's poor majority.

His critics have compared him to Venezuela's left-wing President Hugo Chavez, but he has emphasised links with Brazil's governing Worker's Party.

Keiko Fujimori, 35, has appealed to voters who still admire her father, Alberto Fujimori, who was president for a decade from 1990 but is now serving a 25-year jail sentence for corruption and organising death squads.

She has defended his record, saying that by taming hyper-inflation and defeating Shining Path rebels, he laid the basis for Peru's current economic boom.

The prospect of a run off between Mr Humala and Ms Fujimori has worried some Peruvians, including the Nobel Prize-winning author Mario Vargas Llosa, who has said it would be like "choosing between Aids and cancer".

Mr Vargas Llosa is an outspoken critic of left-wing politics and himself stood for president in 1990 only to be defeated by Alberto Fujimori.

Former President Alejandro Toledo, 64, who led the country from 2001-2006, also claims credit for the economic boom.

In the final days of the campaign he suggested an electoral pact with other candidates to avert a Fujimori-Humala run-off.

On the eve of the election the governing Apra party gave its support to Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, 72, a former prime minister and Wall Street banker.

Mr Kuczynski has strong backing in the business community and among wealthy voters in Lima.

If no candidate wins an outright majority, a second-round run-off will be held on 5 June.

source : bbc.co.uk