Keiko Fujimori wins first round of Peru presidential election

World Today

The daughter of disgraced former president Alberto Fujimori has won the first round of Peru’s presidential election, but who Keiko Fujimori will face in a second round of elections in June is still undecided.

CCTV America’s Dan Collyns reports from Lima.

Keiko Fujimori won the first round of voting with almost 40 percent of the vote, but the race for the runner-up spot is still too close to call.

The polls leading into Sunday’s ballot showed Fujimori around 10 points short of the 50 percent majority she needs to win without a runoff.

After narrowly losing the 2011 election, she worked to distance herself from her father that former president Alberto Fujimori who is serving a long prison sentence for corruption and human rights abuses. But she also capitalized on his strongman legacy.

While many Peruvians think Keiko will be tough on terrorism like her father was opinion polls indicate around half of Peruvians say they would never vote for her and they’ve been vocal about that.

Her closest challengers are center-right candidate Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and leftist Veronika Mendoza.

Most polls show Mendoza in a statistical tie with the investors’ favorite, 77-year-old Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, campaigning as a steady hand on the economy.


Andrea Murta on Peru election

CCTV America’s Susan Roberts spoke to Andrea Murta. She’s the Associate Director of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center at the Atlantic Council, an international affairs think tank here in Washington.