Less than a month ahead of Colombia’s presidential elections, polls showed Sunday that President Juan Manuel Santos maintains a comfortable lead, but a second round is almost certain.
According to two different national polls, a second round of elections is almost guaranteed to take place, with President Santos still in the lead but candidates Oscar Ivan Zuluaga of the Democratic Center and Enrique Peñalosa for the Green Alliance closing the gap behind him.
Both the Datexto and the Ipsos Napoleon Franco polls project that Peñalosa and Zuluaga are likely to be Santos’ main competitors in a second round of elections scheduled for June 15th.
Datexco
The Datexto poll for El Tiempo and Radio W shows Santos ahead with 28.3 % of the vote, Zuluaga with 16%, and Peñalosa with 15.7%.
Behind are Clara Lopez of the leftist Alternative Democratic Pole with 9.6%, and Marta Lucia Ramirez of the Conservative Party with 7.2%. The percentage of undecided voters is a low 5.1%, and those who do not know or did not respond represent 0.7% of the respondents in the survey.
The Datexo survey also predicted that Santos would win in both first and second rounds: in a runoff with Enrique Peñalosa, Santos would get 34.1% of the vote, and the candidate of the Green Alliance, 28.5%; and in a runoff with Zuluaga, Santos would have 36.2% of the vote, and Zuluaga 26.6%.
Datexo figures show a 4.1 % surge in the Santos campaign since early March, from 24.2% to 28.3%.
The Datexco survey consisted of telephonic calls among 1,974 self-proclaimed voters from 31 municipalities in 5 regions of Colombia.
MORE: 2014 election polls
Ipsos Napoleon Franco
In contrast to Datexo, the Ipsos poll conducted for the Media Alliance (consisting of Semana magazine, RNC Radio and TV, and La F.m), shows support for Santos falling from 28% to 23% over the same time period. Ipsos figures show Zuluaga to have 15% of the vote, while Peñalosa lags beind at 11%.
Ipsos also showed Clara Lopez and Ramirez tied with only 6% of the vote, and 22% of the polled voters did not know or did not respond.
The Napoleon Franco poll consisted of telephone interviews with 1,208 men and women over 18 years of age.
MORE: Colombia 2014 presidential election candidates
Sources:
- Encuesta confirma necesidad de segunda vuelta en presidenciales colombianas (El Universal)
- Santos puntea en encuesta; Zuluaga y Peñalosa luchan por segundo lugar (El Tiempo)
- Candidatos acortan distancia a Santos y habrá segunda vuelta: encuestas (Caracol Radio)
- Juan Manuel Santos se mantiene al frente de las encuestas (El Universo)
- Se aprietan las elecciones presidenciales (Semana Magazine)
- Santos y Zuluaga pasarían a segunda vuelta, según la gran encuesta (RNC Radio)