Fujimori set to debate in Peru presidential runoff

One week before Peru's presidential runoff, Keiko Fujimori heads into Sunday's final debate hoping to bolster her lead over center-right rival Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. Fujimori, 41, a right-wing populist with Peru's Popular Force party, has 46 percent of public backing going into the June 5 vote, polling firm CPI found in a survey late last week. Her rival, center-right economist Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, running under the banner of his self-created party, Peruanos por Kambio -- Peruvians for Change -- has 38.9 percent support. The poll was released following Fujimori's commanding performance in a first debate against Kuczynski a week ago, in which she relentlessly attacked the 77-year-old former World Bank executive. Fujimori is the political heir to her father's controversial reign from 1990 to 2000. Her father Alberto Fujimori is currently serving a 25-year sentence for massacres committed by an army death squad. His decade-long rule saw economic growth but also brutal human rights abuses, committed in the name of wiping out the communist guerrilla group Shining Path. Since winning 39 percent of the vote to 21 percent for Kuczynski in the first round on April 10, Keiko Fujimori has sought to distance herself from her father's authoritarian image, and has vowed to work to unite a deeply polarized Peru. She appears not to have been hurt so far by allegations of money laundering during her first run for the presidency in 2011. Her campaign also has been accused of dirty tricks, after her vice presidential candidate Jose Chlimper was accused of sending a doctored video to a television station in an alleged bid to smear their political enemies.