On May 29, Colombia holds presidential elections. This Friday, the Invamer pollster published a survey that indicated that the leader of the “Historic Pact,” Gustavo Petro, continues to lead with more than 43% of voting intentions, although he would have already reached his electoral ceiling. The leftist is followed by the conservative candidate Federico ‘Fico’ Gutiérrez, in full growth in the polls. If no candidate exceeds 50%, there will be a second round between the first two positioned.
The pollster Invamer published this Friday, exactly one month before the presidential elections, the results of the pre-election poll that is already beginning to give clues as to where the Colombian electorate can mobilize for next May 29.
Gustavo Petro, candidate of the ‘Historic Pact’, leads the percentage of voting intention with 43.6% in a first round, 16.9% above his closest contender, the right-wing candidate Federico ‘Fico’ Gutiérrez , who for the first confrontation has, according to this survey, 27.7% of the intention to vote.
According to the data provided by Invamer, no candidate would exceed 50% of the votes, required to avoid a ballot.
In a hypothetical second round, the demographic company maintains that ‘Fico’ would reach a hypothetical 45.2% against Petro thanks to the unity of the right-wing forces.
A percentage of support that, however, would not be enough to move to the Casa de Nariño, the presidential seat. Petro would obtain 52.4% of the votes, according to the same measurement.
The results of Invamer corroborate the political polarization that Colombia is currently experiencing, while the center loses strength with a discourse that does not convince voters.
The representative of the political ‘balance’, Sergio Fajardo, fell to fourth place with 6% of the respondents’ favor; while the independent presidential candidate Rodolfo Hernández would win 13.9% of the votes.
In the saga of well-known names in the presidential race is Ingrid Betancourt, a victim of the armed conflict with the extinct FARC, who kept her kidnapped for more than six years.
With 0.5%, the survey excludes her from any possibility of aspiring to lead the next Executive of the Andean country.
Yann Basset, professor of Political Science at the Universidad del Rosario, commented to international media that “it is difficult to see someone win in the first round, it would be a surprise.”
According to the academic, to win the first round Petro is “very far from the account still for 50% and it is difficult for this to change in a month, although there is still a little time.”
The main faces on the card
On voting day, few faces will take center stage among all the candidates.
The main one is Gustavo Petro. Although he does not have an assured victory, it is the first time in the democratic history of Colombia that a leftist candidate has a real chance of winning the presidential elections. Among his most faithful electorate are those who demand a radical change with respect to the political and socioeconomic situation that the country is going through.
Petro, a 62-year-old senator, was mayor of Bogotá between 2012 and 2015. In the 1980s, he fought the state in the ranks of the M-19, a nationalist guerrilla group that handed over its weapons in 1990.
This is the third time he has run for the country’s presidency. In the 2018 elections he lost in the second round with the current president, the conservative Iván Duque.
Right-wing Federico ‘Fico’ Gutiérrez, the main opponent of the left-wing candidate for the presidential seat, is the youngest of the candidates. At 47 years old, he was previously a councilor and mayor of Medellín, the second largest city in Colombia.
This week ‘Fico’ obtained the support of the Liberal Party, on behalf of former president César Gaviria, by announcing the “coincidence” between the Liberals and Gutiérrez’s candidacy.
The third in the polls is Rodolfo Hernández, 77 years old. Engineer and businessman. He was a councilor for Piedecuesta in the department of Santander, and mayor of the city of Bucaramanga.
Controversial in his statements, Hernández is also known for physically assaulting one of the Bucaramanga councilors while he was leading the consistory.
The centrist Sergio Fajardo is another face that will turn heads on election day. The Doctor of Mathematics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison was also mayor of Medellín and governor of Antioquia, the department of which the city is the capital.
This is the third time Fajardo has run for president.
More than 38 million Colombians are registered to vote on May 29. If none of the candidates for the head of state obtains more than half of the valid votes, the first two will compete for the position in the ballot, which would be held on June 19.
Alliances against the favorite
The candidates Rodolfo Hernández and Sergio Fajardo, third and fourth respectively in the most recent poll, began talks this week with a view to achieving an alliance that would catapult them to fight against Gustavo Petro in the runoff.
However, the sum of the numbers rarely fails, so being behind your potential ally puts you in an awkward position.
The case of the centrist Fajardo draws the attention of the press, since despite the tiredness that the struggle between left and right produces among Colombians, his speech does not excite, according to what the Invamer poll maintains.
Between the penultimate survey and this Friday, Fajardo has fallen nine percentage points.
Approval of the administration Duque
The result of the Invamer survey not only reflected the figures in the race for the House of Nariño, it also revealed the level of approval of Iván Duque, current head of state.
The poll showed that 64.4% of those surveyed disapprove of the president’s management, while 30.3% approve of it.
In this sense, 73.3% of those surveyed consider that things in Colombia are going in the wrong direction. When asked what the main problems affecting the country were, 18.6% stated that it was the economy, 17.8% concluded that it was corruption, and 13.7% put unemployment as the country’s number one problem.
The survey was conducted based on 2,000 interviews conducted between April 21 and 27 and has a margin of error of 2.19%.
With information from EFE and local media
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