After the rocketing rise in the polls of Antanas Mockus in Colombia's Presidential elections, the empire is fighting back. A poll released by IPSOS yesterday has the officialist "U" candidate Juan Manuel Santos in a slight, 1% lead at 35%, with Mockus polling 34%. In fact the poll indicates a technical dead heat but it does mark a change from the 38% Mockus /29% Santos poll the same company published the week before.
Meanwhile, Mockus's running mate Sergio Fajardo managed to end up in hospital this weekend after falling off his bicycle in Medellín. Before you snort and giggle we note that this accident seems to be a pretty serious one, as Colombia's potential Veep managed to break his hip, had to undergo a five hour operation and is now in an isolation ward for fear of infection. Any further campaigning the dude does in the next couple of weeks will likely be via Facebook.
Back to that IPSOS poll, and it's not all bad news for Mockus. Once again the pollsters showed that Santos is having big trouble breaking out from his hardcore support and appealing to the wider Colombian population, because IPSOS also reported that in a second round runoff between Santos and Mockus, Mockus would get 48% support while Santos would get 41%. This points to the basic problem behind the Santos bid: you might love Álvaro Uribe or you might hate him, but there's no denying that he's a charismatic politician who appeals greatly to the Colombian psyche. Whereas Santos is a dickhead.
Meanwhile, Mockus's running mate Sergio Fajardo managed to end up in hospital this weekend after falling off his bicycle in Medellín. Before you snort and giggle we note that this accident seems to be a pretty serious one, as Colombia's potential Veep managed to break his hip, had to undergo a five hour operation and is now in an isolation ward for fear of infection. Any further campaigning the dude does in the next couple of weeks will likely be via Facebook.
Back to that IPSOS poll, and it's not all bad news for Mockus. Once again the pollsters showed that Santos is having big trouble breaking out from his hardcore support and appealing to the wider Colombian population, because IPSOS also reported that in a second round runoff between Santos and Mockus, Mockus would get 48% support while Santos would get 41%. This points to the basic problem behind the Santos bid: you might love Álvaro Uribe or you might hate him, but there's no denying that he's a charismatic politician who appeals greatly to the Colombian psyche. Whereas Santos is a dickhead.