A Dutch website that helps people choose the candidate who best represents their views is proving a success in the run-up to Mexico’s presidential elections due to be held on 1 July.

Some 250,000 people visited the Vote Compass website in the first 10 days after its launch. The website, developed by Amsterdam’s VU University, helps people determine their political preferences. It was presented in Mexico City by Radio Netherlands Worldwide on 28 May in cooperation with a number of Mexican media. The programme offers voters 30 questions to see to what extent the candidate agree with their views. Mexico’s CIDE University and Amsterdam VU University have worked together to map the candidates’ stances on a number of key issues.

The Mexican scientists emphasise that La Brújula Presidencial, as the Vote Compass is known there, does not offer advice on how people should cast their vote, but merely helps them position themselves with regard to the views the candidates say they hold. Radio Netherlands Worldwide joined the project on the grounds that it promotes free speech in a country where the media landscape is widely seen as dominated by the government and its various news outlets.

(cl/imm)

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