Peru results

Ollanta Humala, image from peru.com

Exit polls showed Ollanta Humala (the left-wing candidate) beating Keiko Fujimori 52-48. A provisional count of the actual ballots seems a little tighter, but a still with a Humala win outside the 95% confidence interval.

It's not officially been confirmed by the electoral commission and nor has Keiko congratulated her opponent (as far as I can tell), but Humala's giving a victory speech and it'd be a major upset if anything changed now.

(Quick tip for reading Google-Translated coverage: Humala's party is called Gana Peru, literally "Peru Winning". This is why you see sentences like "Humala leader of Ghana and Peru" or "Winning Peru wins".)

Gana Peru already had a plurality in the parliament; if he also gets the support of the liberal Peru Possible party, then he'll have a majority. By all accounts he should, because PP's leader (former president Toledo) endorsed him before the election. It seems likely that Humala will be able to to deliver on his promises.

What he will have to do is play it cool if he wants to keep businessmen and foreign investors from freaking out. Here's hoping he's more of a Morales than a Chavez; if Hugo calls to congratulate him and invite him up to Caracas for a victory lap, Ollanta might be well advised to demur.