LIMA — The daughter of jailed former president Alberto Fujimori was emerging as the winner of the first round of voting in Peru’s presidential election, according to preliminary official results. Keiko Fujimori will likely face a former World Bank economist in a June runoff.
With 20 percent of the ballots counted, Fujimori has 38 percent of the votes cast in Sunday’s election. Investor-favorite Pedro Kuczynski has just under 26 percent while leftist congresswoman Veronika Mendoza is in third with 16 percent.
Full results may not be available until Monday, but two nationwide quick counts by polling firms indicated Kuczynski would beat Mendoza for the right to face off with Fujimori in June. Such counts have been reliable indicators in previous Peruvian elections.
Fujimori had led opinion polls for months but faces a competitive runoff scenario because half of Peruvians surveyed said they will never vote for anyone associated with her father. Alberto Fujimori, who governed from 1990 to 2000, is serving a 25-year sentence for authorizing death squads and corruption.
While he beat back the guerrillas, a few holdouts remain. On Saturday, suspected Shining Path rebels killed five soldiers and two drivers on their way to a polling place in a mountain town, army officials said.
In a bid to project a more moderate image, the center-right Keiko Fujimori promised not to pardon her father if elected.
Maritza Sacsara, one of the many rural voters who cast votes for Fujimori in the Quecha-speaking village of Iquicha, called her ‘‘a born leader’’ and credited the candidate with campaigning fiercely in small towns and villages often ignored by Peruvian politicians.
In the campaign’s final weeks, Fujimori’s opponents took to city streets by the thousands to warn against what they said would be a return of authoritarian rule if Fujimori became president.
Adding bitterness to the election, two candidates, including Fujimori’s strongest rival, were barred from the race by Peru’s electoral tribunal for campaign violations or technicalities, decisions questioned by the Organization of American States.
Of Fujimori’s two main challengers still in the race, Mendoza represents the biggest shift from the status quo under President Ollanta Humala, who was prevented by the constitution from seeking a second, consecutive term. An admirer of the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, Mendoza fell out with Humala’s government over its crackdown on anti-mining protesters.
While corruption scandals and economic stress sparked by the end of the commodities boom have pushed much of South America to the right, as evidenced by the defeat of leftist candidates in Argentina and Venezuela, polls have said that more than half of Peruvians are clamoring for more state intervention in the economy — the sort of policy Mendoza favors.
She vowed to radically change the pro-business economic model that propelled record growth over the past decade. She said she would ramp up government spending and reduce Peru’s dependence on the extraction of natural resources that she says degrades the environment. Peru is among the world’s top three silver producers.
Kuczynski tried to position himself as the candidate of the center, saying he would avoid the dangers of the two ‘‘extremes.’’ But the 77-year-old investor favorite was dogged by his service to past governments and Peruvians’ preference for outsider candidates.
Three of Peru’s last four presidents had never run for any office before being elected.
Further undermining Peruvians’ faith in their democracy was the last-minute decision by electoral authorities to expel two candidates from the race. Both were kicked out on technical grounds and the timing of the decision, a month before voting, has fueled speculation Keiko Fujimori or another candidate may have been pulling the strings.
Also up for grabs on Sunday are all 130 seats in Peru’s congress. Voting is mandatory.
