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Photo: Reuters

(LIP-wb) Peruvians voted new regional governments and mayors on Sunday and exit poll results indicate that independent candidates are the winners throughout the country while Peru's established parties suffered disappointing losses.

First indications are that the mayor of Lima, Luis Castaneda Lossio (Unidad Nacional), has been re-elected, although he did not gain nearly as many votes (48-50%) as many expected. His most important challenger Humberto Lay (Restauracion National) gained about 16%.

(see chart for Lima's mayorship here -link, El Comercio-)

Candidates for the conservative Unidad Nacional (UN) alliance of Lourdes Flores will also win most of the 43 districts that conform Lima's metropolitan area, nevertheless the party lost some of the heavy support it received during the presidential elections in April.

Antonio Meier and Manuel Masías will be the new mayors of Lima's districts San Isidro and Miraflores, respectively, while Alberto Tejada and Luis Dibós will continue as mayors for the districts San Borja and La Molina.

According to the polls, Meier, - the father of the renowned Peruvian actor/singer Christian Meier - obtained 43.2% of the votes, and Manuel Masías (50%, UN) will be the new mayor of Miraflores, beating current mayor Fernando Andrade (26%, Somos Peru) by a large margin. Andrade was obviously hit hard by TV reports 2-3 months before the election, which showed video footage of his brother Gustavo Andrade receiving bribes in exchange for business licenses.

In San Borja, Alberto Tejada (Democracy with Values) was re-elected (47%).

President Alan Garcia's APRA party won the elections in the northern region of La Liberdad but suffered a major disappointment by losing the mayorship in the capital of Trujillo, traditionally the party's main stronghold in the country. In all possibility José Murgia (APRA) will become governor of La Libertad and the new mayor of Trujillo will be César Acuña of the "Alianza para el Progreso" party.

Ollanta Humala's Nationalistic Party probably suffered the most. Although his candidate Simon Balbuena will be the new mayor of Arequipa, the "White City" in Peru's south, the party suffered heavy losses throughout Peru's southern and Andean areas, where Humala gained most of his votes in the presidential elections last April.

In the region of Lambayeque, Yehude Simon will govern for a second term, and the governor of the Arequipa region will be Juan Manuel Guillén of the local party "Tradition and Future".

Alex Kouri was re-elected as regional president of Callao and Felix Moreno will be the city's mayor.

Other races are too close to call.

Exit poll results in other Limean districts:

• Lince: Fortunato Príncipe 42,4 %, César Gonzáles 30,0%, Hernán de la Fuente 9,3%
• Magdalena del Mar: Francis Allison 66,4%, Juno Mannarelli 11,11%, Jorge Vergel 10%
• San Miguel: Salvador Heressi 71,8%, Robert Pando 12,3%, Oscar Romanville 7,1%
• Surquillo: Gustavo Sierra 37,7%, José Huamaní 27,8%, David Carpio 13,9%
• Ate: Oscar Benavides 29,6%, Juan Dupuy 18,5%, Gerardo Chiclla 18,4%
• Rímac: Víctor Leyton 36,4%, Gloria Jaramillo 23,5%, Luis Beltrán 9.3%
• San Luis: Fernando Durand 32,5%, Ricardo Castro 20,5%, Víctor Alegría 13,1%
• Chorrillos: Augusto Miyashiro 66,4%, Dinas Concha 7,9%, Elsa Neyra 6,6%
• San Juan de Miraflores: Edilberto Quispe 21,3%, Adolfo Ocampo 21,2%, Paulo Hinostroza 12,7%
• Jesús María: Luis Ocrospoma 33,8, Carlos Bringas 31,0%, Livia Flores 12,5%
• Pueblo Libre: Rafael Santos 36,1%, Ángel Tachinno 26,0%, Jhonel Leguía 15,1%
• Breña: José Gordillo 28,8%, Carlos Solano 25,3%, Carlos Sandoval 7,7%

-- more updates and first official results soon --