Santos could lose the election

COLOMBIA - In Brief 15 May 2014 by Andrés Escobar Arango

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Finally, all the major political polls published their latest results this week. All of them show Mr. Santos losing serious ground to his competitors, but even more worrisome is the fact that many of them show he might very well lose in the run-off too. Even Gallup, probably the most well-conducted poll, is giving Mr. Zuluaga a 7-point lead over the president-candidate. Strangely enough, according to Gallup, Mr. Santos could also lose against Martha Lucía Ramírez and would go into a photo-finish race agains Ms. Clara López, from the far left, in a hypothetical run-off. What the polls seem to be reflecting is a serious disenchantment among voters with the current state of affairs in Colombia. In a series of masterful moves, former president Uribe has managed to create a feeling that security, the deepest obsession of voters when it comes to electing presidents, is going south. Surely, the peasant's and teacher's strikes have only made matters worse. One thing is certain: the Santos' campaign is now on the highest possible state of alert. Moving things forward in Havana, defusing the teacher's strike and eventually inflicting a big military blow to guerrilla groups are now much needed results. The possibility of losing the re-election bid has become a likely event.