Peru’s Kuczynski Beats Fujimori In Near-Final Vote Count

A almost complete ballot count shows Fujimori, the daughter of a jailed former president, trailing former investment banker Pedro Pablo Kuczynski by tens of thousands of votes.

Experts said it was nearly impossible that Fujimori would overtake Kuczynski during the scrutiny phase. Frank Bajak, The Associated Press’ former longtime chief of Andean new, joins us to discuss the election.

With 99.5 percent of the polling stations counted, front-runner Pedro Pablo Kuczynski was topping Fujimori, the daughter of imprisoned ex-President Alberto Fujimori, by a 50.1 to 49.9 margin. “It’s still not completely official, but we’re close”, he told journalists outside his house in an upscale neighborhood of the capital, Lima, as he headed to his campaign headquarters. Peruvians living outside the South American country, majority in the United States, turned out massively for Fujimori in the 2011 election but were expected to be more divided this time around.

But Fujimori’s allies said it was too soon. However, with each bundle holding up to 300 votes, Fujimori would not be able catch up to Kuczynski even if all were in her favor.

Fujimori had easily won the first round elections in April and went into the runoff campaign well in the lead.

Kucyznski would be Peru’s oldest president, at age 77.

Authorities had waited for seven results sheets to arrive from a remote valley in the Amazon rainforest.

Some 23 million people were registered to vote in the poll that will see outgoing president and former army officer Ollanta Humala replaced.

“If the results do not change.we will recognize them”, he added. His violent decade in office ultimately landed him in prison for 25 years for massacres by an army death squad.

Another potential spoiler is the thousands of handwritten tallies that were being disputed and evaluated by a special electoral board. But Fujimori’s aides have refused to talk in such stark terms and say that the interests of Peru override whatever political differences exist between the two campaigns. The son of a Jewish-Polish immigrant father, Kuczynski’s first stint in government in the 1960s was cut short by a military coup.