poll trends continue to favor humala- por eurasia group

8/7/2019 Poll Trends Continue to Favor Humala- Por Eurasia Group

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PERU: Poll trends continue to favor Humala 2 May 2011 02:02 PM EDT

Part of the local press and some observers are readingrecent poll results showing nationalist candidate

OllantaHumala almost tied with Keiko Fujimori or onlya few points ahead as a change in trends in favor of Fujimori, but poll trends actually continue to favorHumala. On Friday, a Datum poll showed Humala onlyone point ahead of Fujimori, a narrower lead incomparison with the six-point lead Humala had in thelatest Ipsos/Apoyo poll released a week ago. But in

Datum's previous second round simulation, released inearly April, Fujimori was 5 points ahead, so support forHumala in Datum polls has actually grown. An Imasenpoll released last Sunday shows Humala four pointsahead of Fujimori, but here again the results show apositive trend for Humala given that in Imasen'sprevious second round simulation released earlier this

month he was tied with Fujimori. We continue to viewHumala as the clear favorite to win the presidency inthe 5 June run-off.



Many observers have read the latest opinion pollresults about Peru's presidential race as favoringrightist candidate Keiko Fujimori, but this would be a

mistake. About a week ago, Ipsos/Apoyo released theresults of its first poll conducted after the 10 April first round vote. It showed OllantaHumala with a six-point lead over Keiko Fujimori (42% versus 36%), whichrepresented a clear trend in favor of Humala, giventhat in Ipsos/Apoyo's second round simulation releasedbefore the first round they were tied at 42%. Some

read the results as favorable to Fujimori, arguing that they would represent a narrowing of the difference insupport between the two candidates in the first round,when Humala had 31.7% of the vote and Fujimori had23.5%. But first round results are not comparable withsecond round simulations. The more appropriate metricof comparison is to look at what second round

simulations between Keiko Fujimori and OllantaHumalashowed in the run-up to the 10 April first round votewith polls subsequent to the vote. While voters maynot have been fully tuned into a binary comparisonbetween both candidates before the first round of theelection (thus second round simulations releasedbefore the first round do have to be interpreted with a

grain of salt), one is at least comparing apples toapples.

Two polls released over the past few days showHumala with a smaller advantage over Fujimori in



comparison to last week's Ipsos/apoyo poll.Nevertheless, their results show a similar trend to that of Ipsos/Apoyo; i.e., that Humala looks to be picking

up momentum rather than losing it. They do not represent a narrowing of Humala's lead. The right comparison to do here is not with Ipsos/Apoyo'sresults, but with previous second round simulations of each respective polling company. On Friday April 29,Datum released the results of a second roundsimulation showing Humala only one point ahead of

Fujimori (41.5% versus 40.3%), but Datum's previoussecond round simulation released on 1 April showedFujimori four points ahead (42.5% versus 38.4%), sothe trend clearly favors Humala. The same can be saidabout an Imasen poll released on Sunday that showedHumala four points ahead (42.0% versus 37.8%).Imasen's previous second round simulation, released

on 1 April, showed the two candidates tied at 36%.(See second round simulations in attachment.) Thecomparable results for each pollster will come in thenext round of second round simulations, but all thesepollsters show a favorable trend to Humala and placehim as the frontrunner.

As a result, we remain of the view that Humala willlikely defeat Fujimori in the 5 June second round (70%probability) and become Peru's next president (see PERU: Humala is the clear favorite to win thepresidency, from 25 April). Fujimori will have a hard



time reversing a trend in which voters have slowly but surely shifted their support toward Humala over thepast three months as they viewed him as the candidate

best positioned to enact the kind of change they want.While Fujimori will try to expand her support base bydisputing the "change" vote with Humala andportraying him as a radical, she will face an uphillbattle to turn the table on Humala in a context wherehis campaign has adopted a much more moderate tonein comparison to the last presidential election. If

Humala wins he will try to find a difficult balancebetween his goals of increasing the role of the state inthe economy and maintaining macroeconomic stability(see PERU: Humala won't represent business as usual,but neither will he go down Chavez's path, from 1

April).

Erasto Almeida

Analyst, LatinAmerica.

poll trends continue to favor humala- por eurasia group

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