Peruvian mayor wins job by coin toss

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.

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