What the Jubileo Poll Reveals
Bolivia Today ©
The latest Jubileo poll reveals some interesting developments worth exploring. To start of, the data shows how close the race really is and that the likelihood for a second round to take place is real. In addition, Camacho is bound to play a defining roll in the election outcome, even if the other candidates drop out of the race.
First of all, you can find all these data in the Jubileo Foundation's website tuvotocuenta.org.bo. These people are doing a great job at this.
As you can see, the MAS and CC candidates are leading the intention vote in four departments each, while Creemos is only leading in one, Santa Cruz. However, we have to say that the MAS lead seems a bit more commanding or solid with some 20 points in La Paz, 15 points in Cochabamba, 7 points in Oruro and some 7 points in Pando. CC, instead, is leading the polls only by 0,4 percent in Potosi, 1 point in Beni, but still 17 points in Tarija and 18 in Chuquisaca. Creemos only leads in Santa Cruz, but has a solid lead with some 22 points against the other two contenders.
So yes, it is going to be a close race, with Santa Cruz being a defining factor.
However, according to the poll, the race will head to a second round. The image above shows the intervals (at 95 per cent) for each candidate. If you assume Mesa actually gets votes close to the lower boundary of the interval, in this case 25.7 per cent, and Arce gets support closer to the upper boundary, that is 34.9 per cent, that will leave a gap of 9.2 percentage points. That means, in a worse case scenario for Mesa and a best case scenario for Arce, the magic 10 per cent difference needed by Arce to go to the direct election will not be reached. On top of that, Arce would have to reach 40 per cent of the vote as well. At the moment he needs some 6 to 7 additional percentage points. So Arce needs to increase his overall support as well as enlarging his distance to Mesa by more than two to three percentage points. The big question is, will he be able to do that?
Camacho, enters the play.
The next big question is whether Creemos candidate Camacho will be playing a significant role. Everyone seems to think he will be. He has come in the last week or so under serious pressure to quit because some polls, as presented in Bolivia one by one, are suggesting that MAS will be able to win the race directly. So, not only the candidates quitting the race such as Anez and Quiroga have publicly asked Camacho to quit, but commentators, journalists and civil society organizations, are all expecting Camacho to, as they put it, "unite the opposition vote".
While most people (some 70 per cent) are already sure to know for whom they will vote, as the image above tells, there is still a nagging double digit percentage of undecided voters who do not know or do not want to say yet for whom they will vote. In addition, since Arce is leading the polls by percentage points close to 10 per cent, many people are afraid MAS will be able to come back to government and the Morales era will repeat itself all over again. So, my take is, many voters are actively making calculations seeking for the best alternative. One suggestion circulating is the so called useful vote (voto util, in Spanish). This means, to vote for the one with most possibilities to win against MAS, so that MAS and Morales do not return.
According to the poll, it seems voting for Arce does not come into question. As you can see from above, people will not be willing to vote for Arce and if they have to vote for another candidate other than their favorite, some will vote for Mesa and Camacho. In any case, there will be a large percentage of people, some 40 per cent, left undecided.
If Camacho quits, as I expect he will in the end, he will leave a large portion of people undecided, as Mesa is doing very poorly in Santa Cruz. However, I would be willing to venture an opinion expecting crucenos (people from Santa Cruz) ultimately deciding to vote for Mesa, i.e. the lesser of two evils from their point of view.
As I said before, in a second round, Mesa is expected to win.
