MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Colombian presidential candidates neck-to-neck ahead of May 30 election

Antanas Mockus and Juan Manuel Santos

Colombia’s former Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos and Green Party candidate Antanas Mockus appear to be neck and neck for the May 30 presidential vote, and Mockus would have an edge in a June run-off.

Santos, of the La U party, would get 34% of the vote in the first round, compared with 32% for Mockus, according to a poll by Ipsos-Napoleon Franco.

If neither candidate secures the 50% of the vote needed to win outright in the first round,  Antanas Mockus would win the second round with 45% to  Juan Manuel Santos’ 40% on June 20.

The poll of 1,856 people in 42 counties was conducted on May 20 and May 21 and has a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points. Under Colombian law, no more polls may be published after midnight Sunday until after the first round.

Conservative Party candidate Noemi Sanin and Gustavo Petro of the Alternative Democratic Pole party would tie for third in the first round, with each getting 6% of the vote, according to the poll.

A Datexco poll published on May 21 gave Santos a lead of 35% to 34% in the first round, and a lead for Mockus of 45% to 44% in the second round. Both results were within the poll 2.89 percentage margin of error.

Santos, who was Defense minister under President Alvaro Uribe, has promised to continue the campaign against the country Marxist oriented drugs-funded guerrillas and to attract foreign investment to help “create 2.5 million jobs”.

Mockus, a former mayor of Bogota, has also pledged to pursue the security and economic policies of Uribe, while fighting corruption and improving education for Colombia’s 44 million people.