The results are in line with previous pre-vote polls that showed a stronger share of vote intentions among urban voters for Fujimori, daughter of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori. Meanwhile Castillo, a high school teacher who has never held public office, maintained a stronger appeal among rural voters.

At the last presidential elections in 2016, Fujimori lost to former president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski with 49.9% of the votes against 50.1% for Kuczynski.

Peruvian voters are heading to the polls at a time of extreme political instability. Interim President Francisco Sagasti became the country’s fourth president in less than five years after Congress voted to oust popular ex-president Martin Vizcarra and Vizcarra’s replacement, Manuel Merino, resigned.

Fujimori has promised massive spending to compensate every Peruvian family that lost someone to Covid-19 with 10,000 soles ($2,600), plus 10 billion soles ($2.6 billion) in loans to small businesses to aid recovery. Her promises include delivering free water to communities not served by the main supply grids and granting 2 million land titles.

Meanwhile, Castillo has promised to cancel major mining projects in Conga and Tingo Maria, reform the pension system, decentralize public universities and create a ministry of science and technology to boost industrialization.

“We are going to recover the wealth with the re-negotiation of contracts with large companies, with mining companies that take the country’s wealth,” he said. “How is it possible that in such a rich country there is so much misery, so much inequality, and only the biggest profit, even if they don’t work.”