Peruvian mayor wins job by coin toss

By: 10 years ago

LIMA — The tiny Peru town of Paruro chose its new mayor in a strange way — a coin toss — after the two candidates tied at the ballot box earlier this month, officials said Wednesday.

Wilbert Medina and Jose Cornejo Carpio both earned exactly 236 votes in the October 5 balloting in the southeastern town of under 4,000 people.

So the Cusco area special electoral board jumped in and applied existing legislation that allows for a coin toss to break any such odds-defying tie.

Medina won the toss, and so became Paruro’s lucky leader.