Pubdate: Tue, 11 Apr 2006
Source: USA Today (US)
Page: 9A
Copyright: 2006 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc
Contact:  http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/index.htm
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/466
Author: Danna Harman, USA TODAY
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Ollanta+Humala
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Peru
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/coca

HUMALA FACING RUNOFF IN TIGHT PERU PRESIDENTIAL VOTE

LIMA, Peru -- The polls have closed and the ballot count is underway. 
But Peruvians will have to wait at least a month until they know who 
will be their next president.

With more than 80% of the votes tallied Monday, Ollanta Humala, 43, a 
retired army officer supported by many of the country's indigenous 
and mixed-race poor, led with 30.3%, Peru's election authority said. 
Alan Garcia, 56, a center-left former president, was second with 
24.9%. Conservative congresswoman Lourdes Flores, 46, was close with 
24%. No candidate had the majority needed for an outright victory. A 
runoff between the top two vote-getters will be held in late May or early June.

Humala was endorsed by Hugo Chvez, Venezuela's militantly anti-U.S. 
president. He has pledged to renegotiate the contracts of foreign 
mining and oil companies, rewrite the constitution to take away 
powers from the ruling classes and legalize farming of coca, the 
plant used to make cocaine. He has promised to bring education, 
health care and potable water to impoverished rural areas. More than 
50% of Peru's population lives in poverty.

Humala also has faced allegations of human rights abuses and 
killings, which he denies, as an army commander when Peru fought the 
Shining Path insurgency of the 1980s and early 1990s.

In an interview Monday with the Venezuelan-based TV station Telesur, 
Humala accused his opponents in Peru of distorting his message.

Flores and Garcia vow to generally maintain free-market policies that 
have generated economic growth averaging 5.5% the past four years but 
haven't created enough jobs for poor Peruvians.

Flores, an attorney who consistently led Garcia in opinion polls 
before Sunday's election, had been edged out of a 2001 runoff by 
Garcia, a silver-tongued orator. Alejandro Toledo, the incumbent 
president who by law can't run for a second consecutive term, beat 
Garcia in that runoff.

The national elections director, Magdalena Chu, said Monday that her 
office would complete vote-counting on Friday but that final official 
results might not be known for two weeks after that.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake