Checking in on the approval ratings of President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia

Err....he rules. IKN-translated screen grab tells you all you need to know: 

This new survey out of CM& last night. When quizzed on the numbers this morning, Juanma said "We're going well, we're on the right path." Link here

BREAKING! Humala to Nationalize Peru Mining Industry!

In his presidential inauguration speech, live now, Ollanta Humala has just said that he will nationalize the mining industry in Peru.

Nah, only joking. You guys should stop believing everything you read on blogs anyhow. Have a nice day.

UPDATE: More details on the Peru mining industry nationalizations here.

Peru Prez Poll: Ipsos/Apoyo calling Keiko slightly ahead

Again, this one is valid votes only and again we include last week's numbers as a reference on the chart:

Ipsos/Apoyo is arguably the most reliable pollster in Peru and the result is basically the same as last week. This one is going down to the wire. More details here, including overall voter intention numbers of 43% Keiko, 39% Ollanta, spoil ballot 11% and undecided 7%.

Note to subbers: The above fits in with the sentiment and calls expressed today in the Weekly.

Peru Presidential Election: The 6pm "Rapid Count" result

This is NOT the official result, as those don't start dripping out of Peru's official ONPE body until 8pm and will take at least a couple of days to come through. What this chart shows is the results of the so-called "rapid count" survey done by polling company Ipsos/Apoyo that takes certain voting booths that have been shown to be bellweathers over the years and quickly counts up the scores in those. The "Rapid Count" vote has shown itself to be a fairly accurate gauge of the final results over the years (though with a couple of exceptions, must be said). Anyway, here's how the rapid count survey looks:

With over 3% of gap between herself and 3rd place PPK, it looks near certain that Keiko Fujimori will now be the opponent of Ollanta Humala in the second round vote set for June. And that's all she wrote.

Leaked poll numbers for the Peru Presidential elections

Apparently, this is what decent pollster CPI is going to publish some time tomorrow (well, today in fact as it's now seven minutes past midnight Lima time) as the result of its last opinion poll.

Ollanta Humala 28.3%, 
Alejandro Toledo 19.5%, 
Keiko Fujimori 19.0%
PPK 17.5%
Luis Castañeda13.8%.

The source of these numbers has been pretty accurate and fed correct info previously. Please be clear that as today, April 3rd, is the last day pollsters in Peru can publish survey results, we're going to get a whole slew of numbers pushed at us during the day from several different polling companies. In fact we've already has pollster IMA come out with its poll Saturday that puts Toledo (22%) in a clear second place behind Humala (26.1%), with Keiko (17.8%) in third. We'll be taking a deeper look and making some calls on how Peru-exposure may be affected by the run-up and aftermath of next weekend's election in IKN100, out later to subscribers.

UPDATE: IMASEN has its poll out (published in the reputable daily La Republica) which puts Humala on 25%, Toledo on 20% and Keiko on  18.2%. Then comes PPK oon 16.5% and Castañeda on 11.6%.

Peru: A three-way tie for 2nd

This link takes you to the Datum poll on the Peru presidential elections out this morning which has Ollanta Humala leading with 21.4%, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski second on 17.5%, Alejandro Toledo third with 17.4%, Keiko Fujimori fourth with 16.4% and Luis Castañeda's now fatlly wounded campaign now losing three more points at 12.6%.

Notes:

• Don't read anything into the differences between PPK, Toledo and Keiko. That's a three-way tie, period

• April 3rd is the last day for polls, so there's going to be a real flurry of them over the next three days. Reliable PUCP is due out today, most others Sunday.

• Take them all with a pinch of salt these days. The only thing we can really say now is that Luis Castañeda is toast. Everything else is up for grabs.

• On Sunday evening (April 3rd) the live TV debate between the 5 main candidates will be a key moment in the campaign. Until that is out the way, nothing is decided.

• Subscribers: We'll be going into detail again on Sunday and there will probably be a later update on the Sunday evening debate too (especially if something market-moving happens).

UPDATE: Just heard (not sure if these are 100% exact but won't be far wrong) this about the PUCP poll:  Humala 24.3%, Toledo 18.8%, Fujimori 18.4%, PPK 16.8%, Castañeda 12%.

Annals of opinion poll predictions, Luis Castañeda edition

Part one: In this report dated today and timed 07:40am, one-time frontrunner for the Peru Presidential election assures the world that he will not drop any further in the polls than his current 15.0% rating.

Part two: In this report dated today and timed 08:36am, Castañeda polls 13.8%.

 

For what it's worth, today's IMA poll (margin of error +/- 4%) has Alejandro Toledo in the lead at 23.9%, Ollanta Humala in second spot at 21.9% and Keiko Fujimori in third at 17.6%. Then comes PPK with 16.9% and bottom of the five Castañeda with the aforementioned 13.8%. But be careful from now on, as the polls coming between now and Sunday 3rd are likely to be....errrr......how to put this diplomatically?...errr....to the taste of the owners or commissioners of the surveys.

Humala 2nd place in tomorrow's Apoyo poll?

I'll tell you what I've picked up, no more and no less, then it's your choice to believe or not. About half an hour ago (7pm EST Saturday 19th) somebody told me that Ollanta Humala was being put in second place in the IPSOS/Apoyo opinion poll to be published Sunday March 20th for the Presidential vote on April 10th. My source isn't totally convinced of the veracity of this intel because according to said source it came from a friend who was told by a member of the Humala campaign inner circle who in turn claims to have been given an early sneak preview of the numbers that will get published tomorrow. However, my source is sufficiently intruiged with this and gives it enough substance to have passed it on. In the same spirit, this post gets written.

That's all I know up to now (apart from the name of my source and don't even think about asking). Let's see how the IPSOS/Apoyo poll turns out tomorrow morning (one of the best polling firms in Peru as regards accuracy and non-bias, fwiw). If indeed Ollanta Humala is in second place behind Alejandro Toledo, there are going to be a lot of shockwaves. Watch this space.

PS: The integrity and trustworthiness of my source is unquestionable. A straight shooter and one of the good'uns of life.

Peru Presidential Polling: Getting close for second spot

The new poll from the PUCP polling company is out for the April Peru Presidential elections and things are getting interesting:

Toledo still leads, but he's seen a couple of points taken from his popularity rating. Second is the steady-as-she-goes numbers that Keiko Fujimori enjoys and now a clear third is the wilting campaign of Luis Castañeda. Then comes the fun, as both Ollanta Humala and Pedro Pablo Kuczynski have made up ground on the two battling it out for the second spot in the run-off, with both having found some momentum. In particular, Ollanta Humala has got to within four points of taking second spot. 

If we check how the PUCP poll has developed over the last five polls....

...the trends get clearer. Castañeda has faded, and Ollanta and PPK have found new favour. One thing we haven't seen so far is a bunch of negative attacks on Ollanta Humala, as up to now the top three have kept their insults largely for one another. With one month to go, there's a mighty scrap on now so expect to hear a lot more about Ollanta in these final weeks (and not all of it will be pretty).

I still say Toledo wins (as least worst, not as best), by the way. All data from here.

Peru Presidential Election Update

The last month has seen a whole batch of polls from various companies and, barring a couple of dubious pollsters with long histories of favouristism (eg IDICE that hearts APRA) the numbers churned out have been (not exactly but fairly) regular. Today we get one from ok pollster IMASEN that goes like this:

As it was commissioned by Peruvian national newspaper La Republica, here's the screenshot of what appeared there this morning, too. Nice breakdown of provincial support for each candidate that shows the strong and weak points of each.

So now a view or two from your humble scribe:

1) Barring a very very big upset, Toledo will make it into the two-person second round runoff (and equally large a surprise would be his garnering enough votes to win in the first round...50% +1 vote isn't in the cards).

2) It's still tight between Keiko Fujimori and Luis Castañeda for the other spot in the run-off. Keiko has had a hardcore of 19% to 22% of the vote for a long time now and it hasn't changed. Meanwhile, Castañeda has been steadily losing voter support (in the polls at least) for the last six months or so. It's his second place to win or lose, with Keiko setting a benchmark.

3) Ollanta Humala has recently moved up from a generalized 10%/12% in various polls to a generalized 13% or 14% now. He's running a good campaign, keeping his more hardcore nationalists/leftist views out of the debate and has connected very well with rank and file Peruvians during his street campaigning (perhaps on an equal footing with Toledo on that score). If there's going to be a surprise in this election, Humala is the likely cause and if he gets more momentum it'd be possible (i'd call it unlikely but possible) that he snatched the 2nd place runoff spot.

4) Whatever happens and whoever he's up against in the run-off, be clear that Toledo is now odds-on favourite to be the next President of Peru. His campaign is well-organized and slick, he's a good politico and most importantly the feeling from Peru is that many will vote for him as "the least worst" rather than a great option, simply because the others on offer are so mediocre. Ollanta has baggage from the 2006 campaign, Keiko is quite simply the daughter of Alberto and that in its itself is enough to put people off her, Luis Castañeda is about as charismatic as a wet lettuce and this has been shining clear in the campaign so far, putting people off his candidacy.

5) It's been funny to watch the PPK campaign. He gets a lot of airtime and media support (because he's right up the street of the media moguls and newspaper owners) but when push comes to shove he has little support on a grassroots level. It's refreshing to see that the media can't always bend public opinion to their collective will. 

The bottom line is that IKN says Toledo gets to be President of Peru once again after a the run-off. Put a gun to my head and I'd say that he faces Keiko in that run-off, but it's really way too tight for second place between two (perhaps three) names. By the way, let's also be clear that Toledo has been the IKN tip since March 2010 when he was polling just 8.2% and stuck down in 4th place.

dyodd