Voter support for Colombian president up

The number of Colombians who would vote to reelect current President Juan Manuel Santos increased 8 percentage points compared with last month, a poll showed Thursday. Thirty-six percent of Colombians would vote for Santos in the first round of presidential elections, and he would win a runoff election no matter who the runner-up was, according to the survey published by Colombian daily El Pais. In November, only 28 percent of those surveyed said they would vote for him. Trailing in the second place was opposition candidate Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, leader of the right-wing Uribe Democratic Center party, with 14.2 percent. He received 14.6 percent support last month. In a runoff, Santos would garner 47.5 percent of the vote, while Zuluaga 23.9 percent, the poll also said. The survey, conducted by Invamer-Gallup Colombia and commissioned by a group of national media outlets in early December, queried 1,200 people in Colombia's major cities.