Our call for next Sunday

COLOMBIA - In Brief 17 Jun 2022 by Andres Escobar

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The race remains neck to neck, which means we will have to wait until Sunday to finally know, at around 8:00 pm EST, who is the next president of Colombia.To give you something to work with and compare, we carried out an exercise simulating scenarios of how voters could move between the first round and the run-off. The end-result is that Hernández could be the winner by slightly less than half a million votes, winning by substantial differences in some regions and, most importantly, reducing the losses in others, chief among them Bogotá.This still is our base case scenario. The crucial, defining developments would be: 1. How many uribista, Fico-voters, especially in Antioquia, opt for a blank vote. 2. How many of the strong young Petro supporters that didn’t vote on May 29 end up increasing the Petro camp on June 19. 3. How damaging for voters’ sentiment are: a) the recent character assassination campaigns from the Petro team; and, b) the criminal accusations about Hernández' wrongdoing, during his tenure as mayor, related to garbage collection and disposition.Our take: uribista and right-wing voters would have no alternative but Hernández; young voters talk more than they vote, and there are not many left that did not vote in the first round; and, finally, at this stage in the race, people care less about scandals and accusations; Colombia tends to be suspicious enough and forgiving enough. All in all, these issues could likely tilt this race towards Hernández. https://dynamic-cdn.... ✎ EditSign