Peru presidential poll goes to run-off

Former army Lt. Col. Ollanta Humala led with 31.6 and 33.8 percent of the vote, followed by right-wing Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of jailed former President Alberto Fujimori, who obtained between 21.3 and 22 percent of the vote, AFP reported on Sunday.

Trailing behind them was the 72-year-old former Prime Minister Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who received between 19 and 19.5 percent of the vote.

Former President Alejandro Toledo is also trailing behind in the fourth place with 15 to 16 percent.

Since none of the candidates managed to win more than half of the vote, the presidential election now goes to a run-off, which is slated to be held on June 5.

A Humala-Kuczynski run-off looks likely, however, hopes for Fujimori to join Humala in the run-off has not diminished as the official results has not been announced yet.

Almost 20 million people were eligible to vote to choose a successor for President Alain Garcia, who led a country with more than a third of its population still living in poverty.

Frontrunner Humala, who is backed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, has promised to redistribute Peru's wealth gained from natural resource mining to the poor.

Peru is currently enjoying an economic boom and all candidates campaigned mainly on the platform of maintaining the economic growth while tackling widespread poverty.

The compulsory vote throughout the South American nation, which stretches from the Amazon to the Andes and the Pacific Ocean, was also for 130 lawmakers for the one-chamber Congress.