By Marco Aquino
LIMA (Reuters) – Socialist candidate Pedro Castillo regained ground in voting intentions and slightly increased his lead over conservative Keiko Fujimori almost two weeks before the presidential election in Peru, a poll showed on Friday.
Castillo, an elementary school teacher seeking to implement new taxes and royalties on the mining sector, obtained 44.9%, according to a Datum poll published by the newspaper Gestion. The result marked a 2.5 percentage point improvement over his performance in the previous poll by the same company.
Fujimori, daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori, who is in jail for human rights abuses and corruption, had 40.1% support in the poll, marking an increase of 0.1%, according to the survey of about 1,200 people conducted May 18-20.
The market did not like the poll result, traders said, as the local sol currency weakened 0.92% Friday morning. The local stock market meanwhile fell for than 3%.
The survey’s margin of error was +/- 2.8%, which indicates a technical tie between both candidates.
The survey indicated that the number of undecided voters fell, although the balance could still tip the result towards one or the other candidate in the June 6 election.
(Reporting by Marco Aquino, writing by Hugh Bronstein; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
