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