Kuczynski wins presidential elections in Peru.

By Opera Mundi

Economist and former minister Pedro Pablo Kuczynski won the presidential elections held last Sunday (June 5) in Peru, the country's National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE, in its Spanish acronym) reported this Thursday (May 9).

With 100% of the ballots processed, Kuczynski, candidate for the PPK party (Peruanos por el Kambio), received 50,12% of the valid votes, while Keiko Fujimori, candidate for the Fuerza Popular coalition, received 49,88% of the votes.

In announcing the results on Thursday afternoon, Mariano Cucho, president of ONPE, avoided proclaiming PPK – as Kuczynski is known in Peru – as the winner of the elections, since 173 voting records were still to be counted. However, the votes that still need to be counted can no longer give Keiko the victory.

PPK currently has 8.580.474 votes, while Keiko has 8.539.036, leaving a difference of only 41.438 votes between the two candidates.

PPK said via his Twitter account that "it's time to work together for the future of the country." He also sent messages of thanks to the presidents of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, Argentina, Mauricio Macri, and Chile, Michelle Bachelet, who called him to congratulate him shortly after the results were announced.

"We must work as one country, with many opinions. I offer you humility, conciliation, dialogue and, above all, work," Kuczynski wrote.

Keiko Fujimori has not yet publicly commented on the results. She won the first round of elections on April 10th with 39,8% of the vote (PPK came in second with 21%), and led in the polls until a few days before the second round.

The surge in mobilizations against the then-candidate by various sectors of Peruvian civil society, who feared the return of Fujimorism – the political regime of her father, Alberto Fujimori, the former Peruvian dictator (1990-2000) – was one of the factors that led part of the electorate to reconsider their support for the Fuerza Popular candidate. The endorsement of Kuczynski by Verónika Mendoza, the presidential candidate for the left-wing Broad Front coalition, who came in third place in the first round with 18,7% of the vote, also led part of the population to turn to PPK. However, the leader of the Peruvian Broad Front also declared that she would oppose whichever of the two governments emerged victorious from the election held last Sunday.

Besides the narrow margin of votes between PPK and Keiko in the general elections, which shows the fierce division of the Peruvian population, the new president will have to govern with a Congress controlled by Fujimorism, which elected 73 of the 130 parliamentarians. The Broad Front, from Mendoza, has the second largest bloc, with 20 deputies. With 18 parliamentarians, PPK, Kuczynski's party, will only be the third largest bloc in the Peruvian Congress.