Green Party Candidate Surges in Colombian Presidential Election

From the Guardian:

He was the unlikeliest of presidential hopefuls, a former maths lecturer who once mooned his students to get their attention and wore a superhero-style cape to teach civic values. And a few weeks ago, Antanas Mockus seemed destined to be a brief footnote in Colombian electoral history, with opinion polls giving the Green party candidate 1% of the vote in elections to replace two-term president Alvaro Uribe.

But ahead of Sunday's first round Mockus has surged into contention in a turnaround that has electrified the campaign. A latest Gallup poll gives him 35% against 37% for Juan Manuel Santos, Uribe's defence minister, who began as favourite thanks to his role as the strategist behind Uribe's tough but popular security crackdown against Farc guerrillas.