The first round of balloting went smoothly in Peru's presidential election Sunday, setting the stage for a June 5 run-off between left-leaning former military officer Ollanta Humala and Keiko Fujimori, a pro-market congresswoman and daughter of jailed former President Alberto Fujimori.
Humala won 31.6 percent and Fujimora 23 percent in the initial round of voting, according to the Wall Street Journal, which noted Humala's strategy of employing "Brazilian political advisers who tried to cast him in a more moderate light, in the style of that country's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva."
If true, it apparently worked, says Christopher Sabatini, senior director of policy at the Americas Society and Council of the Americas, who spoke with Trend Lines this morning.