By: Staff Writer
May 31, 2022
Colombian presidential elections are heading into the second round this coming Jun 19 with left-wing former senator ahead of the pack and a surging late comer sneaking into second place.
Gustavo Petro, former senator and former mayor of Bogota, obtained 40 percent of the votes. The late coming and surging 77 year Rodolfo Hernández came in second with 28 percent.
One of the big questions ahead of the second round on June 19 is whether Hernández will be able to capitalise on the 55 percent of voters who did not choose Petro.
Petro has galvanised a Colombian electorate ready to move away from capitalist ideals to a more domestic focused agenda.
Popular discontent has placed the left in sight of the presidency for the first time in the country’s history. Still, the preliminary results represent a setback for the 62-year-old Petro — a former guerrilla fighter and mayor of Bogota — who had been widely regarded as a leading candidate.
Meanwhile Hernandez, 77, has appealed to centrist voters with a unique social-media campaign. The self-proclaimed “King of TikTok” declined to participate in several televised debates and gave few interviews to foreign outlets — although he did appear on CNN, wearing his pajamas, saying that he was a “man of the people.”
Petro is promising more equitable pension distribution, free public universities for students and better implementation of the 2016 Peace Agreement with the FARC, plus meaningful talks with the ELN, who haven`t laid down their guns.
The vote took place in one of the most turbulent times in Colombia’s modern history, with the country plagued by the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic, social unrest and a deteriorating security situation.
The most alarming thing with Petro is that he has been labelled as affiliated with Venzuelan strongman, Nicholas Maduro, which leads to him probably going to be out of favour with the United States.
Petro has yet win the 19 June poll. But a pragmatic approach, which has seen him work with centrists as well as Colombia’s progressive movements, has helped broaden his appeal against the conservative elite – typified by the outgoing and exceptionally unpopular president Iván Duque. Petro’s links to the far left and the M-19 guerilla movement in his youth, still count against him in many eyes. But with pervasive violence resulting from the flawed 2016 peace deal plus endemic inequality, corruption, and police brutality, many centrist voters in Colombia, as well as leftists, are so desperate to kick out-ruling elite; that radical alternative like Gustavo no longer scares them.