Former Peruvian President Alan Garcia was reelected as head of state in a vote on Sunday, according to results of ballot counting announced by the National Electoral Procedure Office (ONPE) on Monday.
 
Garcia, a social democrat from the Peru Aprist Party, won 53.53 percent of the vote, defeating his only rival Ollanta Humala, who garnered 46.47 percent in the runoff presidential election after 91 percent of the vote was counted.

At Monday's celebration ceremony, Garcia expressed his gratitude to the Peruvians "who have given a majority of the vote" to him.

The former president promised that the new government would not repeat its former mistakes and would try to become an administration ready for reconciliation, dialogue and opening-up.

Sunday's vote was a runoff between the two left-wingers, who won the most votes from a 20-strong field of first round candidates.

Garcia won just over 24 percent in the April 9 vote while Humala gained just short of 31 percent.

Some 16.5 million Peruvians were eligible to vote in the elections.

Garcia held Peru's presidency from 1985 to 1990, during which the Latin American country was mired in guerrilla violence and economic chaos. But he said during the election campaign that he had learned from the mistakes of his previous term and would better manage Peru's economy.

Humala, who described himself as a center-left democrat, threatened Peru's middle and upper classes in his campaign. He denounced them as corrupt and regardless of the needs of the poor, and vowed to amend the constitution to deprive the higher classes of power.

On Monday, Humala recognized his defeat at a press conference held at the headquarters of his Peru Nationalist Union Party (PNUPP).

Garcia was born on May 23, 1949 in Lima into a middle-class family. As a lawyer and political scientist, he followed his father into politics.

When he was young, Garcia was an important figure in the party formed by social revolutionary Victor Raul Haya de la Torre in exile in Mexico. It was De la Torre who sent the budding politician to study at the Sorbonne university in Paris.

After a meteoric rise to the head of state in 1985, the low point of his career came in 1992 when he escaped arrest on fraud charges by fleeing Lima. Garcia claimed then president Alberto Fujimori wanted to have him assassinated.

Nine years later, he returned from exile in France to contest the 2001 presidential election. With only 1 percent support at the outset of campaign, he was the laughing stock of the campaign but by its end, he trailed the victor Alejandro Toledo closely.

Garcia now has until 2011 to rehabilitate his battered reputation.

Analysts said many Peruvians showed apparent preference for Garcia, regarding him as the lesser of the two evils and less hostile to business.

Garcia has pledged to scrap any free-trade deal with the United States and raise taxes on the mining industry, the main engine of Peru's economy.

(Xinhua News Agency June 6, 2006)