Presidential election in Colombia | Hope, under high tension

Colombians are called to vote on Sunday in a historic presidential election. The hope for change has a name: Gustavo Petro.

Agnes Gruda
The Press

He is 62 years old, a guerrilla past, a resolutely leftist program and such a solid lead over his closest opponent that he is a hair’s breadth away from becoming Colombia’s next president.

On the eve of the first round of the presidential election on May 29, the only way to stop Gustavo Petro in his march to the presidency, “it would be a big scandal or an assassination”, summarizes Juan Manuel Morales, specialist in Colombia joined to Bogotá last week.

If he overcomes these two pitfalls, Gustavo Petro would create a historic precedent for this country which, since its accession to independence in 1819, has never been ruled other than on the right.

His victory would mark “a break with the elites who have run the country for 200 years”, underlines Juan Manuel Morales, Colombian of origin and doctoral student in political science at the University of Montreal.

Everything distinguishes Gustavo Petro from the leaders from the dozens of large families who have shared control of the country for decades. “He is not from the elites of Bogotá, he is from the regions, he studied in a public university”, lists Mr. Morales.

In his youth, Gustavo Petro was an activist in the urban guerrilla movement M-19, which was disarmed in 1990. In vain did he subsequently earn a diploma in economics, be elected successively to the House of representatives, in the mayor of Bogotá and in the Senate, the traditional political class still describes him as a dangerous extremist.

In an election campaign under high tension, while the polls give 41% of voting intentions to Gustavo Petro, his opponents compare him to the authoritarian Venezuelan leaders Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, whose policies have forced millions of people to exile, especially in Colombia. Or the Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Gustavo Petro’s adversaries are brandishing the accusations of “Chavismo and Castroism like a scarecrow,” notes Marie-Christine Doran, Latin America specialist at the University of Ottawa.

Gustavo Petro and his coalition of the “Historical Pact” defend a center left program, which has nothing to do with the communist dictatorships of Cuba or Venezuela, adds Juan Manuel Morales.

“He has so far respected the democratic process and there are no signs that he is leaning towards dictatorship. »

In interview with The world, Gustavo Petro describes himself as centre-left. “But, he says, in a country like Colombia, the center is a revolution. »

“There are people who are afraid of Gustavo Petro, who say that with him as president, Colombia will become a new Venezuela,” notes a professor at the University of Barranquilla, in the north of the country, who prefers to be identified by the first name of Sebastián, for fear of reprisals.

“Right now, he continues, the right has all the powers. Colombia is experiencing a serious social crisis. As mayor of Bogotá, Gustavo Petro distributed food aid to children, he improved the working conditions of garbage collectors…”

The revolution of the center

“Gustavo Petro speaks with calm and serenity, but what he proposes for Colombia is revolutionary,” adds Juan Manuel Morales.

But what does this “Petro revolution” look like?

The candidate for the Historic Pact adheres to a “plural, feminist and ecological” left, sums up Marie-Christine Doran.

In a country marked by social inequalities, Gustavo Petro advocates free higher education and public health services for all.

He wants to reform the pension system and labor law in a country where half the population works informally. And where the legal duration of the working week is 48 hours.

He intends to launch an emergency plan against hunger. And he promises to stop all new oil exploration and turn his back on coal for good.

Gustavo Petro does not have his tongue in his pocket. He did not hesitate to point out the links between certain senior officials of the Colombian army and the drug trafficking cartels that plague the country.

He didn’t just make friends with these accusations. The commander-in-chief of the army, Eduardo Zapateiro, immediately attacked him on Twitter.

This publication broke with the supposed neutrality of the army. “The commander of the army has displayed a negative view of the one who may become his leader”, underlines Juan Manuel Morales to explain the storm caused by this altercation on social networks. General Zapateiro was then targeted by an investigation.

However, this confrontation raises another specter: that of a possible coup if Gustavo Petro wins the second round of the presidential election on June 19.

The fear

It must be said that Colombia has a long history of political violence. Since 1948, five presidential candidates have been assassinated. They all lived on the left or center left of the political spectrum.

Death threats target Gustavo Petro. The latter also canceled a campaign event in early May, after receiving information about a possible assassination plot by paramilitaries.

Since then, he only moves around protected by a double shield and around sixty armed guards.

For Daniel Mendoza Leal, a Colombian lawyer and journalist exiled in France, Gustavo Petro is squarely in “imminent danger of death”, he wrote in a column published in Humanity.

And it’s not just politicians who are targeted for violence. “Since 2016, 1,500 rights defenders have been murdered in Colombia,” recalls Marie-Christine Doran.

Since the agreements concluded with the FARC guerrillas in 2016, these assassinations have not decreased, on the contrary, notes the researcher. According to her, there is an “exhaustion in the face of violence” exerted by the police, paramilitaries and drug traffickers.

The threat of violence taints the ongoing election campaign. “We are afraid that the army will not accept Petro’s eventual victory, we are also afraid that people will take to the streets if he ever loses”, summarizes Sebastián, the researcher from Barranquilla. His defeat, while he is 14 points ahead of his closest rival, would not pass like a letter in the post…

But alongside these fears, there is also the hope of ushering Colombia into a new era.

Francia Márquez, running mate

Political scientist Marie-Christine Doran, a specialist in Latin America, once met Francia Márquez at a conference in Grenoble. At the end of a day’s work, this eloquent and charismatic woman invited her colleagues to… go dancing. This invitation gives an idea of ​​the personality of the one who could become the next vice-president of Colombia, alongside Gustavo Petro. This Afro-Colombian is of “great humanity, close to people”, underlines Marie-Christine Doran. But she is also a woman who has never been afraid to stand up for her convictions. Activist since adolescence, Francia Márquez became known for her commitment against illegal mining. In 2018, Francia Márquez received the Goldman Prize for Environmental Defense after leading a 560km women’s march to protest illegal mining in her community of La Toma. In 2019, the BBC included her on its list of 100 Women of the Year. This single mother represents, according to Ms. Doran, hope for ethnic communities in Colombia and for women. She escaped several bombings in recent years, says Ms. Doran. “It’s a miracle she’s still alive. Even more than Gustavo Petro, the 40-year-old activist and politician represents this Colombia which “struggles to change things”.