Deductions from one fund manager’s big-data analysis have concluded that Marine Le Pen is on course to be the next president of France.

he expected the right-wing populist to prevail thanks to his firm’s proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) system’s analysis of troves of data, said Arun Kant, chief executive and chief investment officer at Singapore-based investing firm Leonie Hill Capital.

Predictions that Le Pen will “walk over” her opponents in the first electoral test and then prove most forecasters wrong and steal the lead in the second ballot, was based on analysis which, Kant said, incorporates inputs such as social and traditional media discussions, polling, economics and demographics.

With the top two candidates from the April 23 round due to face each other in a second run-off on May 7, the French vote is split into two phases. Socialist Benoit Hamon, conservative ex-prime minister Francois Fillon and former economy minister and independent candidate Emmanuel Macron are also running alongside 48-year old Le Pen.

Kant said that his AI program predicts 16.4 percent votes for Fillon, and 19 to 20 percent for Macron while Le Pen would take 28 percent of the vote in the first round.

Kant said that he expects the right-wing politician to gain considerable ground after a first round victory but added that current inputs are pointing to a Macron victory in the second round — 52.3 percent to 47.7 for Le Pen.

“If she wins the first round, this dynamic will change,” he said, noting the similarities between the populist appeal of Le Pen and President Donald Trump.

Kant said that Le Pen will likely win the presidency with this predicted momentum.

With around 25.5 percent of the vote, an IFOP poll published on Feb. 14 placed Le Pen in the lead for the April 23 ballot. Le Pen would lose the second round of voting to Macron, most election-watchers expect.

The only way Macron could win is if some unexpected factor were to pull undecided voters in his favour, predicted his AI analysis model, Kant said.

French National Front (FN), a right-wing political party founded by her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, and Le Pen, a former attorney, is leader of the party. And she has also earlier run for the country’s top job. In the 2012 election, she failed to enter the second round despite noting a record result for the FN where she won 17.9 percent of the vote in the first round.

Kant explained that he expected her victory to mean the beginning of the end of the European Union but declined to share his investing plans around his Le Pen projection. He said that “it may lead to a financial crisis much sooner than anyone thinks” and currencies around the world will see massive fluctuations.

Le Pen will struggle to cross the 50 percent threshold needed to become president even though she can reach the second round, a bulk of strategists said they believe.

Sevral experts are however of the opinion that anything was possible, given the sheer unpredictability of recent political events like Brexit and Trump’s rise to power.

(Adapted from CNBC)

Categories: Creativity, Geopolitics, Uncategorized