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Mockus narrows gap in Presidential race

By Manuel Rueda, Editorial Director

Friday, April 16, 2010

Green party candidate Antanas Mockus is stepping on the heels of Presidential front-runner Juan Manuel Santos and now trails the former defense minister by only 7 percentage points according to survey results published this week by the Centro Nacional de Consultoria.

The polling firm interviewed more than 1,000 Colombians in 38 cities from April 12 to April 14th and found that 36% of respondents said they would vote for the U Party candidate while 29% stated they would support Antanas Mockus.

Conservative party candidate Noemi Sanin trails Mockus with 19% of the vote, while Liberal Party candidate Rafal Pardo and Gustavo Petro from the leftist Polo Democratico party register less than 5% of voting intent.

 Presidential elections will take place in Colombia on May30th and none of the candidates are expected to obtain the 50% of votes that are required to avoid a second round run-off between the top two candidates.

Mockus, who in March registered less than 10% of voting intent, has been rising rapidly in all polls after he secured an alliance with independent candidate Sergio Fajardo.  On April 7^th two polls gave him between 22% and 24% of the vote and he is now at 29%.

Santos is perceived as the candidate that will give the most continuity to President Uribe´s security policies and has been the frontrunner since January, regularly registering around 35% of voting intent.

Some analysts attribute Mockus rapid rise in the polls to his team´s effectiveness at using social networking sites and to his alliance with Sergio Fajardo.

However, others are also mentioning that his rise is a reflection of Colombian´s disgust with corrupt politicians and with a government that is battling several corruption scandals and investigations on human rights abuses.

Mockus is not linked to any of Colombia’s traditional parties nor to any human rights investigations, which leads many Colombians to perceive him as the most honest of all the candidates.

Some experts are saying that Mockus´s rapid rise emulates the rise of President Uribe in the 2002 elections, who went from less than 5% of voting in December of 20001 to a solid first round victory in May of 2002, thanks to his efforts to present himself as the candidate who would most effectively tackle Colombia´s security problems.

“Mockus is to corruption what Uribe was to security,” said one analyst on Caracol Radio Wednesday night.

It remains to be seen whether Colombians will vote for a political outsider who can cleanse the national government of corrupt practices or if they will prefer Santos, a candidate that has proven to have a strong hand against the FARC guerrillas and will continue to implement the policies of the Uribe government.