Update: Those Peruvian elections? Humala might not win after all

Last we mentioned Peruvian presidential candidate Ollanta Humala (right), protesters had taken to Lima's streets to protest against comments made by his mother, Elena Tesso, who told a newspaper that if a couple of gays were shot, it would be enough warning to stop all the "immorality" that she claimed ran rampant in the streets of Peru.

Understandably, the scandalous declarations from Ms. Tasso probably erased any headway Mr. Humala had made with the gay community back in February when he said that, if elected president, he would have no problem in having a gay person serve on his presidential cabinet member, as long as the person was qualified.

We also had said that Mr. Humala was heading for a come-from-behind victory in this past Sunday's elections but that he would probably face a run-off since he was not expected to get more than the 50% of the vote required to win outright.

Today Reuters reports that, with 85% of Sunday's votes tallied, Mr. Humala has emerged victorious but will face a run-off since he only has 30.9% of the vote so far and there are not sufficient uncounted votes to give him the more than 50% he needs. The problem is that the percentage of votes garnered by the next two candidates are still so close that it might take more than twenty days to figure out who will emerge as Mr. Humala's challenger in the run-off. Former Peruvian president Alan Garcia was leading with 24.6% of the vote over conservative former congresswoman Lourdes Flores who has 23.5%.

For much, MUCH more on the Peruvian elections you could do no better than to head over here.