Tight polls and blossoming scandals agitate a once dull Colombian presidential race
Posted on Wednesday, 05.21.14
Tight polls and blossoming scandals agitate a once dull Colombian presidential race
President Juan Manuel Santos and his chief rival, Óscar Iván Zuluaga, enter Sunday’s presidential election in a dead heat.
By Jim Wyss
jwyss@MiamiHerald.com
BOGOTA, Colombia -- Just a few months ago, Colombians were looking forward to the World Cup to break the monotony of a brutally boring presidential race that seemed like a mere formality to keep President Juan Manuel Santos in the Casa de Nariño for four more years.
With a thriving economy, falling unemployment and a historic peace deal with leftist guerrillas in the works, some analysts were predicting Santos, 62, would win in the first round.
But with just days to go before Sunday’s vote, Santos is in trouble — and there’s enough drama in the race for any adrenaline junkie.
A raft of surveys show former Finance Minister Óscar Iván Zuluaga, 54, surging in the polls and either matching or beating Santos in a five-way race — setting the stage for a June 15 runoff.
In question, however, is how wounded Zuluaga is after a surreptitious video surfaced that seems to show him accepting information from an alleged hacker, Andrés Sepúlveda.
More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/05/21//v-fullstory/4130434/tight-polls-and-blossoming-scandals.html#storylink=cpy
