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LatinNews Daily - 11 June 2018

Duque in ascendancy as Colombian campaign draws to a close

Development: On 10 June, the official campaign period ended exactly one week ahead of the second round of Colombia’s presidential election.

Significance: No more electoral surveys can be released between now and the day of the elections on 17 June. But lots of pollsters released surveys in the final days of the campaign. All, without exception, predicated that Iván Duque, the presidential candidate of the right-wing Centro Democrático (CD) party, would win against Gustavo Petro, of the left-wing coalition Colombia Humana, with a margin of victory ranging from six to 20 percentage points.

  • Duque closed his campaign on 10 June in the central coffee-growing region of Eje Cafetero, where polls show he has a massive lead over Petro. Duque visited the coffee-producing departments of Quindío, Risaralda, and Caldas. He came armed with specific proposals. He promised to establish a price stabilisation fund, for instance, to contain extreme volatility in coffee prices, while providing greater incentives for production.
  • Duque also underscored his stance on the peace accord with the former guerrillas of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc). He promised that his government would “make the necessary modifications [to the accord] to ensure it is based on justice and peace”.
  • For his part, Petro closed his campaign by winning the support of two prominent politicians from the centre-left Alianza Verde party. Claudia López, the running mate of Sergio Fajardo, who finished just behind Petro in third in the first round of elections on 27 May, endorsed his candidacy, along with Senator-elect Antanas Mockus, a popular former mayor of Bogotá.
  • Petro’s attempts to win the support of Fajardo and Humberto de la Calle, who came fifth in the first round for the Partido Liberal (PL), have so far come to naught, but he says he will name a diverse cabinet on 12 June representing “an enormous coalition of different political forces”.

Looking Ahead: There is scope for a late surge in support for Petro, as Fajardo enjoyed in the days before the first round. But ultimately this was not enough for Fajardo and the same is likely to be true for Petro now.

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