May 14 (Bloomberg) -- Colombia Green Party candidate Antanas Mockus’ lead over former Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos has narrowed less than three weeks before the country’s presidential vote, a survey by Datexco Company SA showed.
Mockus would beat Santos of the La U Party by 32.8 percent to 29.3 percent in the first-round vote and would win a second- round runoff with 47.9 percent of the ballots to 33.6 percent for Santos, according to the poll broadcast today on W Radio.
The company’s poll last week had shown Mockus with a 12- point advantage in first-round elections and an almost 22-point lead in the second round. A Centro Nacional de Consultoria poll published last night showed Santos with a slender lead in first- round voting and had the candidates in a statistical dead heat in the second round. A candidate needs more than 50 percent of the first-round vote on May 30 to avoid a June 20 runoff.
Datexco’s most recent survey was conducted May 11-13 and polled 1,200 people in 37 counties by telephone. The margin of error was 2.89 percentage points.
Santos, who was defense minister under President Alvaro Uribe, is credited with weakening the country’s biggest rebel group, known as the FARC. He has promised to continue the campaign against the Marxist guerrillas and attract foreign investment to the $242 billion economy. Mockus has also pledged to retain the security and economic policies of Uribe, while fighting corruption and improving education for Colombia’s 44 million people.
The peso weakened 0.5 percent to 1962.10 per dollar at 9:47 a.m. New York time from 1951.96 yesterday.
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