Right-wing Duque holds lead over Petro in Colombia election poll

Reuters
Colombian presidential candidate Ivan Duque greets supporters on the Simon Bolivar international bridge in Cucuta, Colombia June 5, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Eduardo Ramirez

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Right-wing candidate Ivan Duque is well-placed to win Colombia's presidential run-off on June 17, a poll published on Tuesday showed, as he held his long-time lead over leftist Gustavo Petro. Duque, who has promised to overhaul the 2016 peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and cut taxes, won the most votes in the first-round election on May 27, with 39 percent. Ahead of the run-off, Duque has 52 percent support, according to the YanHaas poll. Petro, a former M-19 rebel and ex-mayor of Bogota, has promised to fight inequality, safeguard the FARC deal, ban open-pit mining and shift state-run oil company Ecopetrol to focus on renewable energy. He had 34 percent support in the Tuesday survey and won 25 percent in the initial vote. The poll has a margin of error of 3.2 percent. Its results tallied closely with those in a Centro Nacional de Consultoria (CNC) poll published last week. (Reporting by Bogota newsroom; Editing by Leslie Adler)