Leftwing Candidate Leads Peru's Presidential Race

A leftwing former army officer who has pledged to redistribute Peru's wealth today looked to have polled the most votes in the country's presidential election, leaving him facing the prospect of a run-off vote against a second-placed candidate.

Ollanta Humala, 43, who has identified himself with Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's trenchantly anti-US president, took 27.8% of the votes counted thus far, according to partial official results. They placed him marginally ahead of pro-business former congresswoman Lourdes Flores on 26.3% and Alan Garcia, a centre-left ex-president with 25.6%.

However, analysts noted that the early figures from the election, which took place on Sunday and was due to resume today, were skewed towards urban areas, where Humala's message of solidarity with the rural poor coupled with pledges to raise taxes on foreign companies and redistribute wealth has not gone down well.

A better guide, they said, were figures from election watchdog group Transparencia, giving Humala 29.9% of the vote, with Flores barely edging ahead of Garcia on 24.4% and 24.3% respectively. Humala thus looks likely to enter a run-off poll against the eventual second-placed candidate, to be held in late May or early June.

Incumbent president Alejandro Toledo, who cannot run for a second consecutive term, oversaw annual economic growth of around 5% during his five-year term. However, the percentage of the country's population living in poverty only fell marginally over the period, and remains above 50%.

Humala's vote is strongest among Peru's indigenous and mixed-race majority, especially Quechua-speaking highlanders who have faced centuries of discrimination by Peru's European-descended political elite. This backing mirrors that gathered by Evo Morales when he was elected as Bolivia's first indigenous president in December.

Peru's middle classes and business elite have expressed alarm at the former military officer's admiration for Chavez, and his pledge to rewrite Peru's constitution to strip power from what he called last week "a fascist dictatorship of the economically powerful". Humala has also pledged to industrialize Peru's production of coca, the basis for cocaine.

Opponents charge that Humala could return Peru to autocratic rule, noting his admiration for the 1968-75 left-wing dictatorship of General Juan Velasco, who took over Peru's media and seized land from wealthy Peruvians for agrarian reform.

When Humala and his wife went to vote on Sunday, hundreds of hostile protesters trapped them for nearly an hour, yelling "murderer", a reference to allegations he committed human rights abuses in 1992 as the commander of a counterinsurgency force in Peru's eastern jungle, claims which he denies.