A leftist former army officer with questionable human rights credentials narrowly won Peru’s presidency on a second try in a bitterly fought runoff with the daughter of disgraced former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori.
Ollanta Humala, 48, won on Sunday after softening his radical image and disavowing affinity for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez that fueled his defeat five years earlier.
He promises Peru’s poor a greater share of the Andean nation’s considerable mineral wealth and pledged in victory to honor the free market, but put Peruvians first.
The former army lieutenant colonel won 51.5 percent of the vote against 48.5 percent for Keiko Fujimori, according to unofficial results compiled by the independent election watchdog Transparencia.
Official results, with 87 percent of the vote counted, had Humala ahead with 51.2 percent, but officials cautioned that rural districts where Humala fared better were slow in reporting.
Humala told supporters on Sunday night he would work to convert a decade-long economic boom that is the envy of Latin America into “the great motor of the social inclusion Peruvians desire.”
He said he would do so by taxing windfall mining profits and exporting less natural gas so that it is cheaper for Peruvians.
Rife with mudslinging and dirty tricks, the campaign was marred by doubts about both candidates’ commitment to democracy.
Fujimori’s father is serving a 25-year prison term for rights abuses and corruption and many Peruvians considered her little more than his proxy. Humala has been accused of violent excesses as an army counterinsurgency unit commander in the 1990s and of encouraging a bloody uprising his brother staged in 2005 seeking to oust then-Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo that cost four policemen their lives.
Keiko Fujimori, 36, did not immediately concede, instead appearing briefly before supporters on Sunday night to ask them to await official results “responsibly and with prudence.”
Humala narrowly lost the presidency to Alan Garcia in 2006. In that election he presented himself as a fan of General Juan Velasco, the leftist dictator who expropriated land from the rich and nationalized a raft of industries during his 1968 to 1975 rule.
This time, Humala tempered his rhetoric.
In a rousing victory speech on Sunday to more than 10,000 supporters in central Lima, Humala said he would create jobs, build homes and deliver running water and electricity to long-neglected backwaters.
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