LIMA: Four days after Peru's presidential run-off election, 99.99 percent of the ballots have been counted, but the country still didn't know Thursday who its next leader is -- and it was unclear how long the wait would be.
With the count nearly complete from Sunday's vote, ex-Wall Street banker Pedro Pablo Kuczynski led his controversial rival, Keiko Fujimori, by a razor-thin margin: 50.11 percent to 49.89 percent.
But electoral authorities were still waiting for seven results sheets to arrive from a remote valley in the Amazon rainforest.
The results were being transported partly by river, with a security escort to keep them safe from the drug traffickers and guerrilla fighters hiding out in the region.
A small number of ballots -- 0.45 percent of the total -- have also been challenged in court for smudges, improper markings or other issues, keeping alive Fujimori's hopes that she can still close the gap of 39,000 votes between her and Kuczynski.
The electoral court is working its way through the challenged results sheets one by one, but there is no clear timeline for how long the process will take.
The head of the electoral authority was to give a press conference Thursday, after the final results arrive, with more details on the endgame.
Pollsters say it would be all but impossible for Fujimori, the daughter of jailed ex-president Alberto Fujimori, to pull off a victory.
Kuczynski's camp has taken to declaring him the virtual president-elect on a daily basis.
"You all know what the margin is. There's no reason for it to change," one of his spokesmen, congressman-elect Gilbert Violeta, said Wednesday.
"Like all Peru, we want this to end soon."
- Jungle vote -
Peru is one of Latin America's fastest-growing economies, and both candidates are right-leaning, market-friendly, US-educated politicians from immigrant families.
Kuczynski, 77, has said he won't declare victory until the official verdict is in.
Fujimori, 41, has hunkered down in her campaign headquarters and said she is "cautiously waiting."
Her campaign is hoping she will make up ground on the challenged ballots and win heavily in the still-uncounted Amazon region known as VRAEM, the acronym for the Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro River Valleys.
Advisers say she is strong in the isolated and lawless region thanks to her tough stance on crime and her father's campaign to wipe out the leftist rebels of the Shining Path movement, whose remnants are still hiding out in the valley's dense rainforest.
Some Peruvians fondly remember Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) for his populist streak, his ruthless crack-down on the Shining Path and his management of a strong economy.
Famed for its ancient Incan cities high in the Andes mountains and its fusion-fueled cuisine, symbolized by the refreshing raw fish dish ceviche, the nation of 31 million people is a major exporter of gold, copper -- and cocaine.
Economic growth slowed under outgoing leftist President Ollanta Humala, from 6.5 percent when he took office in 2011 to 3.3 percent last year.
Kuczynski, son of a Jewish doctor from Germany, studied at Oxford and Princeton.
His American wife is a cousin of Hollywood actress Jessica Lange.
A former economy minister, he has a long career in business and finance.
Fujimori, whose father is the child of Japanese immigrants, was aiming to become Peru's first woman president.
But analysts say she was damaged by a late surge of "anti-fujimorismo" -- though her party won a congressional majority in the first-round vote in April.
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