And the winner is...

Last Friday I wrote about the upcoming Presidential election in Peru. Today it appears that Ollanta Humala has won.

Ollanta Humala appeared on course to narrowly win Peru's presidential election after moderating his firebrand leftwing image and promising to rule from the centre.

Unofficial results on Monday gave the former army officer 51.3% of the vote against 48.7% for Keiko Fujimori, the rightwing daughter of a disgraced former president, after a bruising campaign that polarised the country.

Humala's supporters celebrated on Sunday night hours after polls closed, and Fujimori said she would concede – and not demand a recount – if official results confirmed the exit polls and unofficial tallies...

Humala won overwhelming support from impoverished indigenous voters in Andean highlands who feel left out by Peru's mining-driven economic boom. He promised to share wealth more equally without frightening investors...

Mario Vargas Llosa, the Nobel laureate, called it a choice between cancer and Aids but backed Humala to "save democracy" on the grounds that Fujimori would bring back the worst aspects of the rule of her father, Alberto, who is in jail for corruption and human rights abuses during his presidency in the 1990s.

"What's important is that we have been freed from the return to power of a dictatorship that was terribly corrupt and bloody," he told CPN radio. "We should congratulate ourselves and celebrate."