By Marco Aquino
LIMA, April 16 (Reuters) – Leftist congressman Roberto Sanchez and far-right former Lima Mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga were neck-to-neck on Thursday in the race to face conservative Keiko Fujimori in a June runoff vote for Peru’s presidential election.
Sanchez held a less than 10,000-vote lead over Lopez Aliaga with 93% of ballots counted, as results continued to trickle in through Peru’s ONPE electoral office five days after Sunday’s vote, which was extended into Monday to accommodate several thousand people who were unable to vote.
Sanchez held 11.98% of votes compared to Lopez Aliaga’s 11.92%, while Fujimori – the daughter of late former president Alberto Fujimori who is on her fourth run for the job – maintained a comfortable lead with 17.07%.
A second-round vote has been scheduled for June 7.
The extended vote count has triggered allegations of fraud, notably from Lopez Aliaga, who has called for counting to be suspended.
Lopez Aliaga’s party has offered 20,000 soles (around $5,830) to electoral workers as a reward for information about “possible irregularities, fraud, or sabotage.”
He has not produced evidence to back up his assertions, and European Union observers have said they found no concrete evidence of fraud.
Fujimori has called for calm.
“I have chosen not to comment until there is significant progress in the count,” Fujimori said at a press conference on Wednesday night. “The result is going to be very close. Every vote will count, and the result is not yet decided.”
Pre-election surveys suggested that a large number of voters were undecided or unwilling to vote for any candidate in the race, in which a record 34 candidates competed.
Markets have reacted nervously to Sanchez gaining ground.
He has pledged a new constitution and more state control over natural resources and is an ally of former President Pedro Castillo, who was ousted and jailed in 2022 after a short-lived presidency.
Peru, a major exporter of copper and agricultural goods, has faced years of political upheaval with eight presidents in the last decade. Several of its former leaders are behind bars.
Despite this, it has long been one of Latin America’s most stable economies.
Alvaro Henzler, who heads Transparencia, an election-monitoring NGO, told local radio RPP that it may take a couple of weeks to get the full results, with most of the uncounted votes coming from broadly left-leaning rural areas and overseas, where emigrants tend to back right-wing parties.
“Transparencia is calling for calm and asking people to wait,” he said.
(Reporting by Marco Aquino; Writing by Sarah Morland; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
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