Peru's Flores Drops While Humala, Garcia Gain in Apoyo Poll

[Judi Lynn]

Peru's Flores Drops While Humala, Garcia Gain in Apoyo Poll

Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Peruvian voter support for presidential candidate Lourdes Flores fell for the second straight survey as her two main rivals gained in polling before April's election.

Flores' support among voters dropped to 33 percent in a Feb. 26 poll from 35 percent on Feb. 13, according to a survey by Lima- based polling firm Apoyo Opinion y Mercado. Backing for Ollanta Humala, leader of the Peruvian Nationalist Party, rose to 26 percent from 25 percent, while former President Alan Garcia's support rose to 22 percent from 17 percent, Apoyo said.

Another former president, Valentin Paniagua, rated 7 percent, while Martha Chavez, head of former President Alberto Fujimori's Alliance for the Future coalition, rated 4 percent. Apoyo surveyed 2,000 people nationwide from Feb. 22 to 24. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.

Flores, 46, a lawyer and former congresswoman, backs free- market policies and a trade agreement with the U.S. Humala, 42, a former army lieutenant colonel who took over a mine owned by Southern Copper Corp. in a revolt against Fujimori in October 2000, proposes higher corporate taxes, renegotiation of oil and mining contracts and limits on foreign investment.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=ayrF4NvKO6UQ&refer=latin_america

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One story, two totally diffent treatments!

Former Peru President Surging in Poll
By Associated Press
February 27, 2006, 10:55 PM EST

LIMA, Peru -- A former president whose government ended in hyperinflation is rising rapidly in voter support ahead of Peru's April 9 election, according to a national poll published Monday.

The polling firm Apoyo gave 22 percent support to Alan Garcia, who governed from 1985 to 1990, a period of financial turmoil and a growing leftist insurgency. The figure was was up from 17 percent three weeks ago.

That put him in third place, behind front-runner Lourdes Flores, a pro-free-market former congresswoman with 33 percent, and closing the gap with Ollanta Humala, a nationalist retired army lieutenant colonel, with 26 percent.

The nationwide poll of 2,000 voters had a margin of error of 2 percentage points, meaning Garcia and Ollanta were technically in a statistical tie.
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http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-peru-presidential-race,0,6310400.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

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Some people have claimed AP never spins information.

[Art_from_Ark]

1. One of my coworkers

has strong connections to Peru, including the high school that Ollanta Humala attended. He thinks that Garcia is going to pull it out, on the second try. That is, there will be a run-off if no one wins 50%, and my co-worker thinks that Garcia is aiming for the #2 spot in the first election, and then will focus on capturing votes from the unsuccessful candidates in the second election.