Leap into the unknown?

24 May 2010 By Martin Hutchinson

Polls suggest that the opposition s Antanas Mockus may win May 30 s presidential election. The populist mayor of Bogota has put forward no concrete policies other than an increase in corporate taxes, popular among Colombia s poor. His accession could be bad for business.

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Colombia holds elections on May 30, with a runoff between the top two candidates June 20 if no candidate gets 50 percent of the vote. The two leading candidates are former defense minister Juan Manuel Santos, a protégé of outgoing president Alvaro Uribe, and former Bogota mayor Antanas Mockus, running as an independent with support from the Greens. Opinion polls put the two closely matched, with Mockus likely to pick up support in a second round if one is needed.

Colombia's GDP in the fourth quarter of 2009 was 2.5 percent above the previous year; the economy is expected by the Economist panel of forecasters to grow 2.5 percent in 2010 and 3.6 percent in 2011. Colombia has a Gini coefficient of 58.5, the world's ninth highest. It is ranked 75th on Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index and 58th on the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom.

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