Unofficial results reveal voters will choose between ex-army officer Ollanta Humala and former first lady Keiko Fujimori
Peru's voters will choose between an ex-army officer who vows to redistribute the nation's wealth and the daughter of incarcerated former leader Alberto Fujimori, during a June runoff for the presidential elections, according to unofficial results.
The outcome of Sunday's election – in which three less polemical candidates collectively captured 44% but cancelled each other out – reflects the disarray that has plagued Peruvian politics since Fujimori's emergence from obscurity in 1990.
His daughter Keiko Fujimori may end up beating Ollanta Humala in the 5 June runoff. Humala was the lone candidate advocating a greater state role in the economy to provide poor Peruvians with a greater share of the country's mining riches.
The ex-army lieutenant won the first round in Peru's 2006 presidential vote but was defeated by Alan García in a runoff widely seen as a rebuff to Hugo Chávez, who had openly backed him.
This time, Humala distanced himself from the leftist Venezuelan president, while Fujimori backed away from vows she made two years ago to pardon her father, who was convicted of approving death squad killings and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Nobel literature laureate Mario Vargas Llosa called the Humala-Fujimori runoff option "a choice between Aids and terminal cancer", given perceptions of their anti-democratic tendencies.
The official vote count was slow, but unofficial results provided by the non-profit electoral watchdog Transparencia gave Humala 31.7% – well short of the majority needed to win outright. Fujimori received 23.3% and was trailed by Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a 72-year-old former World Bank economist and investment banker, with 18.3%.
In fourth place was Alejandro Toledo, Peru's president from 2001-06, with 15.9%, while the former mayor of Lima Luis Castañeda was fifth, with 9.9%.
Pre-election polls indicated either Toledo or Casteñeda would defeat Humala in the second round, while Kuczynski and Fujimori would have a more difficult time.
Jo-Marie Burt, a political scientist at George Mason University, said the outcome put Peru on "a really terrible road", adding: "I think it shows how weak the whole political system is."
Politics in this resource-rich Andean nation have been chaotic since its traditional parties all but dissolved after being unable to cope with civil war and hyperinflation in the late 1980s.
"There is a lot to admire about Peru but its political class is not among its strongest assets," said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue thinktank. "It is a country of paradoxes and contradictions – impressively robust growth but precarious politics. In this election, the extremes came out on top.
"There was a chance to embrace a moderate middle ground, but that opportunity slipped away," he said.
Humala spooked foreign investors by promising to divert natural gas exports to the domestic market and obtain greater royalties from foreign investors in Peru's mineral wealth. He called his victory proof that Peruvians "want a great transformation".
Peru is a top exporter of copper, gold and silver – commodities whose rising prices have helped fuel economic growth averaging 7% during García's tenure. But the growth has barely trickled down to the poor. Toledo said voters simply "expressed their rage ... at having economic growth without the distribution of the benefits of that growth".
Fujimori constantly invoked her father during the campaign, vowing to continue his legacy of delivering essential services to Peru's forgotten backwater and being tough on crime. It's a potent message in a nation of 30 million and a murder rate that doubled under García. One in three Peruvians live on less than $3 (£1.80) a day and lack running water.
During her final campaign speech, supporters shouted her father's popular nickname, Chino. She sought to dispel concerns of a return to authoritarian rule, adding: "We are going to work my dear friends with absolute respect for democracy, press freedom, human rights and the rule of law."
Peru ranks 13th out of 17 countries in the region in citizen access to social services, according to the World Bank. In the country's rural highlands, where both Humala and Fujimori ran strongly, 66% of Peruvians live in poverty.
Kuczynski, a German immigrant's son who was economics and prime minister under Toledo, climbed into contention in the final weeks. But the perception of him as the candidate of big foreign capital hurt his chances. Toledo had led in the polls until late March, when Humala overtook him and his voters then defected to Kuczynski.
Humala, 48, made promises similar to those of Fujimori: free nursery school and public education, state-funded school breakfasts and lunches, a big boost in the minimum wage and pensions for all beginning at age 65.
However, many Peruvians don't believe his pledge to respect international treaties and contracts. Humala, who launched a short-lived revolt against Alberto Fujimori just before the latter fled into exile in 2000, advocates rewriting the constitution, as Chávez and his leftist allies in Bolivia and Ecuador have done.
Fujimori has a rock-solid constituency thanks to her father's defeat of the Maoist-inspired Shining Path insurgency and his taming of hyperinflation in the 1990s.
Her supporters do not seem concerned by critics' fears that she would pardon her father and allow him to call the shots during her presidency.