Peru Presidential Election: Keiko Fujimori Holds Slim Lead as Electoral Body Reviews Contested Votes

(Central News Agency, Lima, 11th – Combined Foreign News Report) Peru's National Election Jury today began reviewing contested ballots from the presidential election. The initial count is nearly complete, but the margin between the two candidates is extremely narrow.

According to Reuters, Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of Peru's former dictator and a conservative candidate, gradually took the lead late last night with the help of overseas votes, reaching 50.002% of the vote. Leftist candidate Roberto Sanchez has 49.998%, a difference of only about 600 votes out of 18 million.

According to the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE), over 98% of votes have been counted, with the remainder being mostly contested ballots. Of the more than 90,000 polling stations nationwide, only 9 have yet to report results. Meanwhile, cases involving approximately 1,600 polling stations and about 400,000 ballots have been submitted to the National Election Jury (JNE) for review.

The review is expected to take several weeks. Most of the contested ballots come from the Lima metropolitan area, which is Fujimori's stronghold.

Peru's financial markets have largely recovered from the sell-off earlier this month. The sell-off was triggered by a rise in Sanchez's poll numbers, as he had vowed to reform Peru's economy, which is overly reliant on mining. Peru's main stock index closed up 3.94% today, and the sol currency strengthened 0.56% against the US dollar to 3.39 sol per dollar.

Throughout the counting process, the two candidates have been in a tight race. Fujimori had an edge in exit polls, while Sanchez held a slight lead in Ipsos's quick count, a method that has accurately predicted previous election results. (Editor: Hung Pei-ying) 1150612