Blast injures 7 near Peruvian election office

From Claudia Cisneros
Special to CNN

LIMA, Peru (CNN) -- An explosion Wednesday outside Peru's national election office slightly injured seven people, authorities said.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility, but investigators said they are looking into whether the incident was politically motivated.

Three police officers and four civilians -- including a mother and her baby -- sustained minor injuries, when a backpack containing an explosive device detonated.

Interior Minister Antonio Ketin Vidal said the backpack apparently contained dynamite.

One of the police officers who sustained injuries from the blast said he found a flier signed by the Shining Path rebel group near the site of the explosion. Shining Path is one of two main guerrilla groups in Peru that has led various terror campaigns since the 1980s.

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The blast came just two weeks before a presidential runoff vote. Latest opinion polls show more than 30 percent of voters are undecided in the contest between centrist favorite Alejandro Toledo and leftist ex-President Alan Garcia.

Toledo said the bombing incident looked like a final action from disgraced former spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos to damage the stability of the electoral process.

Montesinos, who worked for ousted President Alberto Fujimori, fled the country after a videotape showed him allegedly bribing a congressman. His whereabouts are unknown.

Other Peruvian politicians speculated that the blast could have been the act of several political sectors interested in sabotaging the election.

Fujimori, who was fired by Peru's Congress last November after being called "morally unfit" to rule, is in Japan, where he is protected from extradition by dual Japanese and Peruvian citizenship.