Somebody else's opinion republished with no personal comment (subscribers know my views at this point, and they haven't changed since last Sunday, folks). It just happens that the following opinion gets read by a helluva lot more people than mine.
PERU: Humala should be able to reverse recent polling trends
9 May 2011 04:55 PM EDT
Poll results released over the weekend show that the presidential race has tightened, thus confirming that extensive negative media against nationalist candidate Ollanta Humala and missteps in his campaign have played in Keiko Fujimori's favor. However, we continue to view Humala as the favorite for two main reasons. First, he has the time and resources to react. Humala has probably been too risk averse and even a bit complacent with his frontrunner position in previous polls, but he will most likely respond by reaffirming more strongly his commitment to stability to gain more support from moderate voters and also move to explore more actively Fujimori's liabilities driven by still large negative sentiment voters have regarding her father's administration. Second, from a structural perspective, the odds are probably in Humala's favor, since he can make a more credible case than Fujimori that he represents the kind of change that most voters want.
Poll results released over the weekend certainly didn't bring good news for the Humala campaign. An Ipsos/Apoyo poll released last night shows Fujimori two points ahead of him -- 41% versus 39%. This is the first time she takes the lead in the race since the first round. More importantly, the poll also confirmed a recent trend of growing support for Fujimori. The first Ipsos/Apoyo conducted after the first round and released on 24 April showed Humala opening a lead over Fujimori (42% versus 36%), but an Ipsos/Apoyo that was leaked to the press on 5 May showed support for Humala down to 39% and support to Fujimori up to 38%. Yesterday's poll provides a second data point to confirm a change in trends in favor of Fujimori. This trend also appears in a Datum poll released yesterday. The poll shows Humala still ahead with 40.0% support against 39.1% for Fujimori, but his lead has narrowed slightly in comparison to a poll released on 29 April, which showed Humala with 41.5% support and Fujimori with 40.3%.
Fujimori is probably benefiting from a combination of negative media against Humala, missteps in the Humala camp, and her own campaign strategy, which has been more effective that we had anticipated. Most of the local media has taken a negative position towards Humala. He made the strategic decision to move towards the center of the political spectrum to appeal to voters who want moderate change (the majority of Peruvians), but the sincerity of his decision has been widely questioned. For example, he has been accused of willing to nationalize private pension funds to finance new spending and of sharing the views of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The negative media has helped place Humala on the defensive, but he probably bears some responsibility here. His campaign has been risk averse in confronting Fujimori and probably a bit complacent with his frontrunner status after the first round. In the meantime, Fujimori has made inroads in presenting herself as someone who can conduct change with responsibility. She has made new campaign promises such as granting property rights for small farmers and protecting the rights of local communities, and has even announced a new proposal to introduce windfall profit tax on mining. She is also distancing herself from her father's government which many associate with human rights abuses and corruption. If such campaign dynamics remain unchanged, the odds of a Fujimori victory will increase.
Nevertheless, we continue to view Humala as the favorite. From a campaign dynamics perspective, a few factors suggest he can react and turn the terms of the public debate in his favor. The second round run-off is almost a month away, so he has the time to rethink his electoral strategy and tactics, and implement changes. He also seems to have the financial resources and competent campaign advisors (he ran a good campaign in the first round, with effective television advertisements) to act on two key fronts. First, he will give new reassurance that he won't pursue radical policies to win support for moderate voters. He is already doing this by showing openness to negotiate part of his government plan, committing not to touch private pension funds and reaffirming that he has moderated his views. But there is certainly more he can do here. He could, for example, make clearer and stronger statements about his willingness to appoint respected economists to key positions if he assumes office, to distance himself from Hugo Chavez, and to pursue moderate changes while securing stability. Equally important, he could explore more aggressively Fujimori's vulnerabilities by, for example, questioning the credibility of her proposals to help the poor and fight corruption on the grounds that her father pursued "neoliberal" policies and his government was market by corruption scandals. Polls continue to show voters have a strong negative association with Alberto Fujimori's administration, so Humala still has the "going negative" card which he can play in the campaign.
In addition, structural factors will probably help Humala more than Fujimori, and thus tilt the election in his favor. As we have pointed out, most voters want some of change to the status quo and Humala probably can make a more convincing case than Fujimori that he represents change. Evidently, the challenge for Humala is to convince voters who want moderate change than he will be no radical. Many voters still view him with caution. The latest Ipsos/Apoyo poll shows that 47% of respondents think Humala would follow the model established by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and 51% think he is not being sincere when he says he won't touch private pension funds. But changing this perception, at least among parts of the electorate, seems to be within Humala's reach. One indication of that is the behavior of his rejection rate, which now stands now at 38% according to Ipsos/Apoyo. Though both candidate's rejection rates have fluctuated in recent weeks and Humala's is now slightly above Fujimori's , which stands at 34%, Humala's rejection rate has dropped substantially since the earlier stages of the campaign and much more than Fujimori's. This suggests that resistances to Humala have diminished over the past months. If he can provide more reassurance to these voters, it will be hard for Fujimori, whose father was president for ten years, to sell herself as the candidate that best represents change. Moreover, Fujimori's ticket has structural liabilities that haven't been fully explored and have significant potential downside to her. About a third of voters seem to have a very positive view of her father's government. That gives her a good base of core supporters, but suggests that many voters would be sensitive to negative campaign that emphasizes her ties to her father's authoritarian rule.
Erasto Almeida
Analyst, Latin America