Another day, another 20,000-vote narrowing in the gap between Lulu Flores and Alan Garcia, the two candidates vying for second place in Peru’s electoral race, which will go into a second round next month.

Yesterday, Flores was trailing Garcia by 93,000 votes. Today, it’s 71,000 votes. There’s still about 8% of the votes to be counted. If you ask me, I think the odds are starting to go into her favor, if these expat trends continue. She’s behind but she’s also got the momentum from voters. Can it last for eight percentage points?

I am starting to cross my fingers.

Read it here.

UPDATE: Wolfy at Lobo en Peru has a riveting update on Garcia’s shrinking lead over Flores, along with Humala’s absolutist attitude about not forming political alliances. Read it here.

UPDATE: Here’s a fascinating new analysis from a blogger I have not run across before called Dark Matter Politics on caudilloism as an idea within this election.

UPDATE: Alek Boyd at VCrisis has an important detail about the rush of actual Venezuelan election officials, who are well-known to Venezuelan voters for involvement in gerrymandering and fraud, to immediately jump behind Humala and get their pictures taken. It doesn’t make people confident about Humala in Peru. Alek describes the Peruvian press reaction here.

UPDATE: Matthew Shugart at Fruits and Votes has some interesting background here about Peru’s quasi presidential system. He thinks that Garcia, if he wins, will have to form alliances, which creates different conditions for governing than he had in 1985-199o.

UPDATE: Miami Herald has a writeup on this here.

Hat tip: Boz