Spotlight: Peru's Fujimori heads to runoff with her party gaining majority in Congress

The Popular Force party of Keiko Fujimori gained a majority in Congress, as the presidential frontrunner is heading to a June runoff, though her rival remains unknown due to the neck-and-neck results between two contenders, exit polls showed Sunday.

The Popular Force party won around 60 seats, while the Peruvians for Change party took the second place with around 25 seats, followed by the Broad Front, with around 22 seats, according to polling company IPSOS.

If confirmed, these results would allow the three parties to dominate the 130-seat chamber.

According to Gilbert Vallejos, director of the National Organization for Electoral Processes (ONPE), the final results will be announced on Monday after all votes are counted.

Meanwhile, exit polls showed that the center-right Fujimori is ahead in the Peruvian general elections.

A poll by IPSOS-Peru found Fujimori with 37.8 percent of voting intentions in the election, which began at 8 a.m. local time (1500 GMT) and closed at 4 p.m. local time (2100 GMT) on Sunday.

Her two closest competitors, Pedro Kuczynski from the Peruvians for Change party and Veronika Mendoza from the Broad Front, are tied with 20.9 percent and 20.3 percent of the vote, respectively.

Two other polls by GFK and CPI confirmed Fujimori's lead, putting her on 39.9 percent and 39.1 percent of voting intentions. The two polls also seemed to favor Kuczynski in second place, putting him ahead of Mendoza both times.

The other seven candidates for the highest office in the country are far behind.

Since it seems that no candidate will cross the 50 percent barrier to win directly, a second round of elections between the top two finishers will be held on June 5.

For Fujimori, the biggest obstacle she faces probably is not one of the other candidates, but her father, disgraced ex-president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000).

Many Peruvians fear she would use her power, if elected, to pardon her father, who is serving a lengthy prison sentence for human rights violations and undermining Constitutional order to maintain and extend his hold on power. She has pledged not to.

Still, on Wednesday, just four days before the elections, an estimated 50,000 protesters filled Lima's central square, as part of annual demonstrations marking the anniversary of Fujimori's "self-coup" on April 5, 1992, when he dissolved Congress.

A total of around 23 million Peruvians, including about 900,000 living abroad, are eligible to vote for president, vice president, 130 congressmen and five representatives to the Andean Parliament, who will take office on July 28 for the next five years.

The new Peruvian government will have to face the priorities of reviving the national economy and dealing with insecurity, Juan Carbajal, a political expert at the National University of San Marcos, told Xinhua.

The world's No. 2 copper producer has seen a slowdown in its economy in the past five years, with a GDP growth of 3.26 percent in 2015, down from 8.5 percent in 2010, largely due to the drop in international commodity prices.

With unemployment rate standing at nearly 7 percent in urban areas, Peruvians have been increasingly complaining about rising delinquency and organized crime.

To deal with the sluggish economy, President Ollanta Humala's successor will have to come up with more jobs, broad reforms, increased investment and improved productivity, Carbajal said. Endi