The survey shows a 50% of voting intention for Arévalo and 32% for Sandra Torres, taking into account blank and null votes.
Guatemala City, August 17 (RHC)-- According to a poll released on Wednesday, Seed Movement candidate, Bernardo Arévalo de León, leads the voting intention for the second round of elections this coming Sunday in Guatemala with 61% considering only the valid votes.
The second poll on the runoff election, conducted jointly by CID Gallup and the Freedom and Development Foundation, revealed that Sandra Torres, of the National Unity of Hope (UNE) has 39 percent in voting intention.
With a margin of error of 2.8%, 1,819 people were personally interviewed for the survey between August 4 and 13. A 45% believe that, regardless of who they would vote for, Arévalo de Leon will win the elections; 27% think it will be Torres, but 29% are still not clear who will be the new president.
On the other hand, the survey also indicates that 32% believe that the son of former president Juan José Arévalo (1945-1951) can improve the situation of the country, against 20% who believe that Torres could achieve it.
The percentage of undecided voters dropped from 29% to 18% with respect to a first edition of the poll presented on August 2. On that occasion, Arévalo had 63% of the voting intention over the three-time candidate (2015 and 2019), who had 37%.
According to Paul Boteo, executive director of Freedom and Development Foundation, "21% decided their vote a week before the first round and even more interesting is that 21% decided their vote the moment they were at the ballot box."
The Guatemalan presidential elections were marked by numerous disqualifications of opposition candidates, as well as the July 1 order for the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) to investigate the validity of the first round of the elections. Arévalo was questioned for allegedly committing irregularities in the formation of his party in 2017.
On July 13, the electoral body revoked the ban ordered by a judge against the Seed Movement on July 12. The judge's order came shortly after the TSE validated the results of the June 25 presidential elections, which authorized Arévalo de Leon to participate in the second round.
In the first round, Torres obtained 15.86% and Arévalo 11.77%, while there were 17.38% of annulled votes, a higher percentage than any other candidate. Next Sunday's winner will take office on January 14, 2024, for a four-year term, replacing right-wing Alejandro Giammattei as president.
