Garcia's Peruvian comeback

We try to address elections around the world here at The Reaction, but I neglected to post on Peru's run-off presidential election held this past Sunday. As no presidential candidate received more than 50 percent of the popular vote in April's election, the run-off election pitted the top two candidates from the first election against each other, Ollanta Humala (30.6 percent) and Alan Garcia (24.3 percent). Results show that Garcia won the run-off with 52.5 percent of the vote.

The BBC has more here.

A few key points: Garcia was president from 1985-90. His presidency "was marked by rebel attacks and rampant inflation". Garcia "said the result was a blow to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who had strongly supported [Humala]". Humala had promoted a "nationalist project". Garcia won Lima and "the more developed northern coast," while Humala "polled well in the southern and central areas". The BBC says that "Garcia's biggest challenge now is to unite a politically divided country".

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For more election results from Latin America, see our previous posts on Chile, Bolivia, and Costa Rica, as well as these BBC articles on Haiti and Colombia.