From Colombia Reports:
Colombia’s National Registry says it is fully prepared for Sunday’s runoff presidential election between Partido de la U’s Juan Manuel Santos and the Green Party’s Antanas Mockus, and that the world will know the outcome by 5:30PM.
“The results from May 30 [the first-round presidential election] has generated a lot of expectations. We think that we will follow the times from that day, meaning that it is possible that between 5:15 and 5:30 in the afternoon, we will have 95% of the results,” an official from the National Registry announced on Saturday…
The June 20 runoff election between Santos, who gained 46.57% of the vote in the first round, and Mockus, who won 21.47%, will open at 8 AM, and run until 4 PM.
The latest voter poll from last week showed 65% of the respondents plan to vote for Santos and 28% for Mockus.
It’s a shame that Mockus didn’t win, but his campaign was still a step forward for the global Green movement. As Greens organize around the world, naturally there will be some intoxicating campaigns that fall short of victory. As a sign of things to come, this was encouraging.
Antanas Mockus helped to promote the Green Party’s image as crusaders for good government, much like his compatriot Ingrid Betancourt. He wasn’t just an intellectual, but possibly the best mayor Colombia has ever seen. A good example to follow as we continue to work on what it means to be Green.
Apparently the polls lied.
Cody, that’s a bit of a ridiculous statement. I mean, in hindsight he got trounced (isn’t that an interesting word?). But there were points during the campaign when he was polling ahead of Santos and especially as American observers it’s silly for us to say he “didn’t have a chance.”
Mockus was the underdog, of course, but he also made several mistakes and said things that hurt is campaign as well.
He didn’t have a chance.
I would have preferred Mockus winning, but he still did Greens in Colombia and around the world a lot of good.
Mockus lost. But he’s still an amazing person, IMHO, and this is a big step forward for the worldwide and Colombian Green Parties (not to sound too much like Green Party Fan…).