A new poll shows that Peru’s free-market, free-trade, pro-property-rights, anti-poverty, anti-Hugo Chavez candidate is BACK IN FIRST PLACE ahead of Peru’s polls this Sunday!

If it’s accurate, this is great news! Lourdes Flores is once again topping Ollanta Humala in Peru’s presidential race, not a moment too soon.

It immediately follows Flores’ willingness to confront and speak the truth about Hugo Chavez, the continent’s worst tyrant (see my post below), and stand up for democracy!

Flores at her campaign rally in Lima yesterday. Source: Reuters, via Yahoo!

EFE has the breaking story here:

Poll: Flores takes lead in Peruvian presidential race

Lima, Apr 6 (EFE).- Peruvian conservative presidential candidate Lourdes Flores inched ahead of her main rival, nationalist-populist Ollanta Humala, in the race for the Peruvian presidency, according to the results of a recent poll.

According to the survey by the CPI polling firm, Flores, candidate of the conservative National Unity alliance, has 27.6 percent of voter support, compared with 25.9 percent for Humala, of the Peruvian Nationalist Party, or UPP. If elected, the 46-year-old lawyer would become Peru’s first-ever woman president.

Peruvian former President Alan Garcia, candidate of the American Popular Revolutionary Party, remains in third place with 24.9 percent of voter preference.

The CPI poll, which has a margin of error of 2.1 percent, was carried out April 4-5 among 2,550 people across the country.

Humala, a former army lieutenant colonel who took part in a failed uprising in 2000, had led in voter-preference surveys released Sunday, the final day the distribution of such polls was permitted according to electoral law.

More than 16.4 million Peruvians are eligible to vote in Sunday’s election for president, two vice presidents and 120 members of Congress.

None of the presidential candidates is likely to garner the more than 50 percent of the votes needed to win the election in the first round. EFE wat/mc

Flores on the campaign trail this week. Source: AP, via Yahoo!

UPDATE: A primer on Peru’s election from NPR is here.

UPDATE: Bloomberg confirms the poll in its more thorough report here – helloo market rally!!!!!

UPDATE: Boz, a political expert, has some very good straight analysis here. I think his take on the outcome is too pessimistic but it’s well worth reading. Awww, Boz, ya gotta believe!!!

UPDATE: Also via Boz, is an interview of Ollanta Humala by Andres Oppenheimer. Needless to say, Oppenheimer is not impressed with the leftist.

UPDATE: Washington Post has an online news roundup with links to several of the regional newspapers here.

UPDATE: Peru Election 2006 has a wrapup of the campaign closes of Lourdes Flores and Alan Garcia here.