Chinchilla Ahead In The Polls; Ban On
Campaigning Starts Tomorrow
If the 2010 presidential elections were held
today instead of February 7, Laura
Chinchilla would be the hands down winner
with a 46.6% support, compared to her
current main rival, Otto Guevara, support of
only 19.5%, according to the latest poll by
Demoscopía for Al Día.
The Partio Liberación Nacional (PLN) party
candidate, Chinchilla, has been a favourite
to take the presidential elections in 2010.
However, the surprise is the upwards trend
of support for Guevara of the Movimiento
Libertarion (ML) party and the almost no
show position of the Ottón Solís of the
Partido Acción Cuidadana (PAC) party, with
only 8.3% support.
This is the third presidential campaign for
both Guevara and Solís, while it is the
first for Chinchilla. Solís almost took the
presidential chair from Oscar Arias in 2006,
losing by less than 1.000 votes.
Support for Chinchilla has been dropping
since October, while it has been growing for
Guevara.
According to Demoscopia, Chinchilla dropped
12.9% since October, while Guevara gained
3%.
The Guevara strategy is to attack the
efforts, or lack thereof, of the Arias
government of which Chinchilla was first
vice-president until she resigned last year
to run for the presidency.
The Guevara campaign focuses on a number of
concerns of Costa Ricans today - insecurity,
rising cost of living and monopolies like
Riteve - and exploits the point that
Chinchilla is merely nothing more than an
Arias puppet.
In a separate poll by CID-Gallup, Chinchilla
would win with a 45% margin.
Guevara, in the CID-Gallup poll holds firm
at 19%, while Solís has 13% of the voter
support.
In the CID-Gallup poll, other candidates,
Luis Fishman of the Partido Unidad Social
Cristiana (PUSC) has a 9% voter support,
while Rolando Araya of the Alianza
Patriótica (AP) is with 3% and Oscar López
of the Partido Accesibilidad sin Exclusión (PASE)
with 2%. The other candidates share a 1%
overall support.
The CID-Gallup poll also takes in the
support of Oscar Arias who has seen his
image tarnished, as popular support for the
president dropped from 58% in October to 43%
in November, or a 15% drop in a month. The
drop is attributed to the attacks against
his government in the political campaign.
The poll was released a day ahead of the
banning of any and all campaigning until
January 1, 2010.
The ban is by the Tribunal Supremo de
Elecciones (TSE) to allow Costa Ricans peace
and tranquility from politicking during the
holiday season. All political parties and
candidates are banned from holding public
forums and speeches and advertising of all
forms on all media. |
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