Congresswoman Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of jailed ex-President Alberto Fujimori, is leading the field of potential candidates for Peru’s presidential election in April 2011, according to a recent poll by firm Ipsos-Apoyo.
Fujimori has 24 percent support from those surveyed, compared to 19 percent for the current mayor of Lima, Luis Castañeda, who had been leading in many of the polls this year, daily Peru.21 reported. A previous poll by Ipsos-Apoyo had Castañeda with 24 percent support and Fujimori at 23 percent.
In third place is former President Alejandro Toledo with 16 percent followed by the head of Peru’s Nationalist Party, Ollanta Humala, who has 14 percent support.
Humala had the greatest increase in support from the last Ipsos-Apoyo poll. The 2006 presidential candidate was previously sitting at 11 percent.
Nevertheless, the head of Ipsos-Apoyo, Alfredo Torres, says Toledo has shown impressive growth in support over the last year. “A year ago he was below 10 percent and now he is at 16 percent,” Torres told Radioprogramas.
In addition, the poll also showed a decline in the percentage of those who said they would not vote for Fujimori, Toledo and Humala, while it increased for Castañeda.
For Fujimori, 24 percent of those surveyed said they would not vote for her, down from 31 percent. Thirty-seven percent said they would not vote for Toledo, down from 54 percent, and 45 percent said they would not vote for Huamala, down from 67 percent.
Castañeda was the only one of the four top candidates who saw an increase. In the previous poll, 25 percent said they would not vote for Lima’s mayor, which has now increased to 31 percent.
Despite Castañeda’s declining popularity, the poll showed the he would still defeat all of the other candidates in the event of a second round vote. Meanwhile, Fujimori would defeat both Toledo and Humala.
