Santos' main rivals in May election neck and neck in poll

BOGOTA: Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos, the clear front runner in May elections, has no clear single rival as two candidates are now in a technical draw with his former main opponent, the latest survey showed on Friday.

Pollster Ipsos Napoleon Franco's survey showed Santos would win 24 percent of the votes in the first round, slipping four percentage points from the entity's last poll in late February.

Oscar Ivan Zuluaga of the Centro Democratico party who was previously Santos' only main rival, is now flanked in the poll by Clara Lopez of the left-wing Polo Democratico. Both have 9 percent.

Enrique Penalosa, the candidate of the Green Alliance, not an ecology-focused party despite its name and one with several prominent left wing members, has garnered a similar amount of support at eight percent.

Right-wing Zuluaga, the anointed candidate of popular ex-President Alvaro Uribe, is a staunch opponent of Santos' decision to engage in peace talks with leftist FARC rebels and seeks to resume Uribe's policy while in office from 2002-2010 of pursuing the military defeat of the rebels.

The difference in support for Santos' rivals varies less than the survey's 2.8 percent margin of error putting them all technically in a draw. The poll comprised of 1,233 interviews carried out from March 14 to 16.

The high number of respondents who have said in previous surveys that they would make a 'blank' or protest vote, choosing none of the candidates, has been falling as the election nears and now stands at 19 percent versus 24 percent in February.

If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round, a second round of voting will be held in June. If Santos and Zuluaga were the finalists in such a run-off, the incumbent would obtain 36 percent of the vote and win.

In a run-off against the Green Alliance's Penalosa, he would obtain 19 percent of the vote versus 33 percent for Santos. In second round voting, the candidate with the most votes wins even if the proportion is less than 50 percent.