"Pay-to-play" scandal rocks Peru presidential race

By Caroline Stauffer and Teresa Cespedes

LIMA (Reuters) - The campaign of Peruvian presidential front-runner Luis Castaneda was thrown into disarray on Tuesday by allegations that one of his running mates paid to be on his ticket.

Carmen Rosa Nunez de Acuna denied a report in the newspaper Peru 21 that she paid 500,000 soles (£114,181) -- a relative fortune in the Andean country -- to become one of Castaneda's two picks to contest Peru's two vice presidential posts.

Peru 21 said it obtained audiotapes of phone calls in which Nunez discussed making payments to Castaneda's National Solidarity party. Beyond the "pay to play" implications, the transfers would have exceeded the limit of 216,000 soles that individual donors can legally give to political parties.

The scandal, the first serious one of the race, could hurt Castaneda just three months before election day on April 10.

Castaneda, a centrist former mayor of Lima, is nearly tied for first in opinion polls with former President Alejandro Toledo and Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of jailed former President Alberto Fujimori.

Like his two main rivals, Castaneda has endorsed mainstream policies that have turned mineral-rich Peru into one of the world's fastest-growing economies.

Marco Parra, general secretary for the National Solidarity party, said the tapes were based on illegal wiretaps that were given to the media.

"We denounce this criminal act. The private life of Carmen Rosa Nunez was bugged. This tape was manipulated or edited," he told reporters. "The dirty war has started."