Colombia Election early results

The polls closed just under one hour ago and we already have 31.9% of the votes counted that show:

Juan Manuel Santos has 46.8% of votes
Antanas Mockus has 21.43% of votes

We're told that by 8pm local time (9pm New York time) around 90% of votes are expected to have been counted. We'll update this post as the evening progresses.

UPDATE: The scores are now 46.64% Santos, 21.61% Mockus, 10.35% Vargas, 9.47% Petro, 5.75% Sanín with 72% tallied in what's called the "precount" (i.e. official quick count and supposedly very accurate forecast). If you're interested in helping crash the official website, the link is here.

UPDATE 2: Now 79.86% of the precount done, with 46.54% Santos, 21.68% Mockus, 10.33% Vargas, 9.38% Petro, 5.86% Sanín. It has to be said that these numbers are very different from all opinion polls carried out pre-election that had Santos and Mockus in a technicial dead heat for the last two weeks of campaigning (here's the link to charts showing the last set of main polls from last Sunday). Let's just leave it at that for the time being.

UPDATE 3: 91.8% of the precount is now done and I think we've got the picture by now: 46.57% Santos, 21.55% Mockus, 10.24% Vargas, 9.22% Petro, 6.05% Sanín. There are going to be a lot of questions asked about this vote, not least from the observers that have already made observations of irregularities.

UPDATE 4: We'll make this the last update, as with 95.34% the result is now all-but set in stone. 46.58% Santos, 21.50% Mockus, 10.19% Vargas, 9.18% Petro, 6.11% Sanín.

Are the wheels coming off the Mockus Presidential bid?

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.

Colombia's Presidential Elections: an excellent op-ed by Adriaan Alsema of Colombia Reports

Colombia Reports has been the go-to site for English language news on Colombia's presidential election ever since campaigning kicked off and today the excellent coverage has a worthy addition. CR's editor Adriaan Alsema has written this op-ed on the race so far and looked carefully at the major campaign blunders of Juan Manuel Santos in the light of the Mockus surge.

It's a top article and neatly gets to the heart of several issues surrounding the election. Smart analysis and thoroughly recommended, here's the link again to make sure you click through.

IKN52 on Colombia: Mockus talks mining

Here's an excerpt from the "Regional Politics" section of yesterday's IKN Weekly, issue 52. The subject is Colombian presidential frontrunner Antanas Mockus as he talked about the effects of mining in Colombia on the country's economy in an interview last week. Enjoy.

Colombia: Antana Mockus talks mining
In a reported interview between Colombian presidential candidate (and now favourite for the post) Antanas Mockus and head of Colombia’s export body ANALDEX published Friday 30th , (10) the subject of mining was broached. Here in translation is the section that covered the issue. It should be pointed out here that the word “mineria” (translated here as “mining”) in Colombia is usually used to refer to all non-renewable extraction and therefore the Q&A also applies to the larger and more developed hydrocarbons industry as well. Here’s my translation, more comment afterwards:

Javier Díaz: How should we take advantage of the resources that mining is generating (for the State)?

Antanas Mockus: The mining boom is now years old and if we don’t take advantage of it to construct a more sophisticated production base (more added value manufacturers with incorporated know-how) we’re doomed.

JD: The mining boom will affect the foreign exchange rate. That’s where Dutch Disease (ottonote: put roughly this means too much country dependency on one product, but it is more complicated than that) appears.....

AM: That is a risk, but we are currently moving in the right direction. With high-level training programs for Colombians we will avoid wasting the extra resources internally. If this can be done not just with human resources, then even better. Using these extra revenues is good if the spending has a positive effect on the country.

JD: How will you explain to the country that exploring for and knowing how to produce mineral resources is not a sin?

AM: Sergio Fajardo (ottonote: Mockus’s running mate on the ticket) will be one of the people in charge of Science and Technology issues and the adjustment of the educational system towards productive vocations in every region. Some people say the (mining and hydrocarbon) royalties must go towards infrastructure and others say that educational progress should be the main target, because once the mining bonanza has gone we must have much better qualified citizens and the roads can be financed via concessions.

There are countries that use protectionism policies in the fields of research, technology and human resources. Therefore they don’t subsidize exports but make themselves super-competitive for those that need these sectors. In the same way, we must look at which sectors we are going to invest in and the non-approval of the Free Trade Agreement (with the USA) has helped the productive sectors to become more competitive. What’s more, I believe in (country) interdependency, as only the very rich and powerful countries have the luxury of auto-supply. Interdependency also means that any country that breaks off commercial relations with another puts pressure on its neighbours.”

IKN back. This excerpt shows pretty clearly that, whether you agree with his policies or not, Mockus is pragmatic, obviously pro-business and has a well-educated view of economic issues. There are also things such as opposing the current Venezuela trade embargo with Colombia and wanting to use “the mining bonanza” to greater effect on a national level. But there is an implicit message that a Mockus Presidency, as explained in the last two IKN Weeklies, will not be an automatic “anti-mining” agenda even though he is running on a Green Party ticket. He seems to view mining not as an end but rather as a mean to an end, using it to collect revenues in order to further country development from a central treasury. This may eventually lead to higher taxation and royalties but by definition mining will not be banned in the country all of a sudden.

Our bottom line analysis re. a possible Mockus presidency and mining has not changed: There is reason for investors to be cautious about events unfolding in Colombian presidential election because a Green Party candidate is leading the way, and that automatically brings baggage. However there’s no need to panic if you like the sector and you’re long Colombia. Finally, as mentioned previously this author avoids the country for junior mining investments at this time (for reasons previously explained) so any conclusion stays in the world of theory personally.

A reader's comment on Mockus

That impressive chart again

Normally, anonymous comments don't make it through here. But this one, just left by a certain Colombian national on the Chart of the Day post below, is worth reading methinks. So here it is:

As a Colombian, I feel elated to see this. This Mockus effect is due in part by the public repudiation of the wrongdoings of the incumbent:
-Mr. Uribe, trying to take active part in the presidential campaign, openly promoting Santos and disqualifying the other candidates.
-The growing outrage about the 'chuzadas' (phone tapping and espionage to selected members of the opposition and the supreme court).
-Santos ultimate responsibility in the case of 'falsos positivos' (extra-judicial killings of civilians to make them appear as guerrilla casualties).
-The failure of 'justicia y paz' process with the paramilitaries, where the victims are unlikely to get proper closure -justice and economic repair.
Let's hope this momentum carries through until the election day.

Let Colombians decide who is their next President. We outside the country can have opinions, but nobody else has the right to decide for them.

Santos vs Mockus

Of all the charts featured in IKN51, I think this one is my favourite.


Meanwhile, for those of you versed in the tongue of Cervantes, this link is a good report on how the Colombian election is shaping up.

Colombia Poll: Santos 35%, Mockus 34%

Holy crap, he's only gone and caught him up in two flat weeks! Krupa over at LatAm Daily has the juice.

UPDATE: The ever-excellent Colombia Reports runs its report on the latest numbers, too.

Mockus wins TV debate

Go Beard!

Last night the candidates for the Presidency of Colombia met in thier second televised debate. According to Caracol radio's survey, 66% of those asked said that Antanas Mockus won out, giving the best answers on many subjects including how to deal with the FARC, education, foreign relations (esp with Chávez) etc.

The dude is on a roll. Here's a link to Colombia Reports' article on the debate, so go find out the details there. For those wanting analysis in Spanish language, this article is pretty good.

Colombia: New opinion poll numbers for the Presidential election

This race is beginning to get very interesting indeed. Here's the chart with the latest opinion poll numbers out yesterday evening...

.....and here's a straight translation of this ANSA wire report (I've translated it kinda literally just for a bit of fun...the mentality of Spanish is different, it's not just the words used):

The ex-mayor of Bogotá Antanas Mockus has cut even further the distance between him and the ex-Minister of Defence Juan Manuel Santos, in his aspiration to reach the Presidency of Colombia, according to the results of an opinion poll divulged this afternoon by a televison news program.

According to the study, realized by the National Consulting Centre for the television news program, the Party of the U (centre officialist) has a support of 36%, while Mockus of the Green Party (non-traditional movement) follows him with 29%.

After the two favourites in the polls follow Noemí Sanín (officialist) 19%, Gustavo Petro (opposition) 4%, Rafael Pardo (opposition 4%, Germán Vargas (officialist) 2%.

The television news program CMI, who contracted the opinion poll, informed that the consultation was realized between April 12th and 14th in 38 cities, via telephone calls, with a margin of error 3% and a confiability of 95%.

For sure, the first thing that most will note is that if Sanín doesn't make the run-off (as is looking likely) there are a lot of those 19% that will support Santos in the ballotage. This makes Santos stil the favourite for the whole caboodle, but Mockus really is moving up quickly. There's a lot at stake here, be in no doubt. Mockus is left wing and running under a Green Party ticket, but he's by no means a hard left candidate, he's pro a lot of the things that foreigners watching the election will approve of (FDI, open relations, etc) and is much more the Chilean biz-friendly type of soft left than the Venezuelan type of hard left....but saying that, you junior miners better watch out, because this is the Green Party after all.

By way of a reminder, the first round vote happens May 30th. If no candidate makes it to 50% + 1 vote, then there's a second round run-off between the top two.

Antanas Mockus has Parkinson's Disease

The main political news out of the Colombian Presidential race today (correction: this came out last Friday and I've just found out how long I've had my head in the sand) is that current second in the polls and evermore likely runoff contender Antanas Mockus admitted during a radio interview that he has been diagnosed with the onset (or early stage, i'm not a doctor and don't know the best term in English) of Parkinson's. The link to Mockus's recorded words on the radio show is on this link.

However, both he and his medics have made it very clear that the early nature of the disease means that he wouldn't be affected during his term of office in any way that might diminish his performance as President. So right now in Colombia the population is on the same learning curve about Parkinson's that N.America went through thanks to that Back To The Future dude. This is a good thing.