UPDATE:
Boletín nacional: Santos 6.850.098 votos (50,71%) Zuluaga 6.102.859 (45,18%) Mesas escrutadas: 82,25% #Elecciones2014 http://t.co/MrynH88bDo
— Caracol Radio (@CaracolRadio) June 15, 2014
Earlier today,
Today’s Colombia’s run-off election.
2014 World Cup: Colombia beats Greece 3-0 in Group C opener.
Pres. Santos thinks it’ll get him another term:
Colombian Leader Sets Goal: Win Soccer Match, Then Win Presidency
President Juan Manuel Santos, Whose Job Is at Stake in a Sunday Election, Hopes for a Political Assist from His World Cup Team. I don’t quite get the logic, but apparently it has to do with the thought that larger turnout would favor Santos,
Political strategists say a Colombian victor [sic] against Greece on Saturday in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, could generate a broad feel-good moment for Colombia, drive higher voter turnout the next day and tip the scales in Mr. Santos’s favor over his rival, Óscar Iván Zuluaga.
That’s assuming that
- The fans are not hungover, and they’ll want to go out and vote, and
- The fans are not staying home or at the sports bar or sports club watching whatever other game may be on:
Ricardo Rodríguez, a soccer-loving doorman from Bogotá, is one fan who plans to forgo voting Sunday. “It’s a thousand times better to see soccer than to go out to vote,” he said.
I don’t know enough of Colombian political thinking to guess whether the average Joe conflates the soccer team with “team Santos”, if at all.
We’ll find out later this evening.
