Jewish ex-banker leads Peru’s elections

Early results from Peru's presidential election show Pedro Pablo Kuczynski has a slight lead over Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of an imprisoned ex-president.

According to the national elections office, Kuczynski had 50.59 percent of the vote on Monday against 49.41 percent for Fujimori, with more than half of the votes counted.

Both have vowed to unite Peru after the violent period of rule by Fujimori's father Alberto in the 1990s during which a civil conflict killed 70,000 people.

Alberto Fujimori is now serving a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses and corruption committed during his rule.

Many voters want his daughter to win and be tough like her father in fighting a new wave of violent crime in Peru, a major cocaine-producing country.

Fujimori's opponents, however, distrust her because her father dissolved congress and killed opponents with death squads.

Kuczynski, best known by his initials PPK, urged his supporters to wait for the full official results, but was confident of victory.

Ipsos analyst Alfredo Torres called the vote results clearly a tie, saying they could tilt toward Fujimori in remote regions, and towards PPK from voters abroad.

Torres said the most likely scenario is that PPK wins the election and becomes the next president of Peru.

The 77-year-old Kuczynski, son of a Jewish doctor from Germany, is a former World Bank executive and ex-prime minister of Peru. 

He has less support among poorer voters but "anti-Fujimoristas" have flocked to him. 

Both candidates are right-leaning, US-educated politicians. Their rise comes as several other Latin American countries are witnessing a decline of leftist governments.

Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff is suspended from office, pending a corruption probe, while presidents of Venezuela and Bolivia are facing a wave of unrest. 

Their supporters are accusing the opposition of working with the US government to undermine leftist administrations in Latin America. 

On Saturday, Cuban President Raul Castro cited a "coup promoted by the oligarchic and neoliberal right-wing," which he called "a threat to peace, stability and essential regional integration."  

"We can't remain indifferent before this turbulence in Latin America and the Caribbean, which is a consequence of an imperialist and oligarchic counteroffensive against popular and progressive governments," he said.

Peru is a big exporter of copper, gold and other minerals but saw its strong growth slowing under outgoing leftist President Ollanta Humala.

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