Peru's Fujimori leads Humala in presidential poll

LIMA (Reuters) - Right-wing lawmaker Keiko Fujimori has a small lead over left-wing nationalist Ollanta Humala ahead of Peru's June 5 presidential run-off, a poll by survey firm Ipsos showed on Sunday.

The nationwide poll, published in newspaper El Comercio, showed Fujimori getting 51.1 percent of the vote and Humala with 48.9 percent when blank and null votes were excluded in a simulation organized by pollsters.

It was the third poll in the past week to show Fujimori, the daughter of failed former President Alberto Fujimori, ahead of Humala, but in most cases with a lead within the margin of error.

The Ipsos survey polled 2,005 people May 7-13 and has a 2.2 point margin of error. A raw count of all mock ballots showed Fujimori with 43.9 percent of the votes and Humala with 42 percent.

A fifth of voters are undecided or plan to abstain in the tight race that has caused volatility in the local stock and currency market and made the final outcome of the election difficult to predict.

Both candidates appeal to poorer voters, though Fujimori, a lawmaker, has support from the business community, which is eager to see a decade-long economic boom continue and worries Humala might rollback years of free-market reforms.

The elder Fujimori opened the economy and slayed hyperinflation, but his government collapsed in 2000 in a cloud of corruption and human rights scandals stemming from his crackdown on insurgents.

Humala, a former army officer who led a short-lived revolt against Fujimori's father, campaigns as a moderate leftist but he spooks investors with his more nationalist policy platform that outlines an interventionist agenda.

Humala says his brand of nationalism would strengthen a weak state to make sure the benefits of economic growth reach all Peruvians, not just local elites or foreign firms. A third of Peruvians still live in poverty.

Peruvian markets plunged after Humala won the first-round vote on April 10 but have since partly recovered as investors bet on a Fujimori victory.

Before the latest gains, the market value of Peru's stock index plunged by about $18 billion in less than three weeks, according to the Maximixe brokerage.

(Reporting by Patricia Velez and Terry Wade)