Opponent Gustavo Petro won the first round of Colombia’s presidential election by a wide margin on Sunday and now has a strong chance of becoming the country’s first left-wing president in recent history, after a historic rout of the right.
He will face in the second round, on June 19, an independent candidate, the millionaire Rodolfo Hernandez. Conservative candidate Federico Gutierrez came third, a surprise result that marks an unprecedented defeat for Colombia’s traditional right.
Favorite in the polls throughout the campaign, Senator Petro, a former guerrilla convert to social democracy, economist and former mayor of Bogotá, obtained 40.32% of the vote, according to official results covering 99% of the ballots counted. .
“Colombian Trump”
In the opinion of all observers, Mr. Petro, 62, has been able to exploit the thirst for change shown by Colombians in the face of inequalities and corruption, a need which he has made his emblem with his slogan “for life “.
The four years in office of the outgoing Conservative President, Ivan Duque, who could not stand for re-election, saw no substantive reform. They were marked by the pandemic, a deep recession, massive anti-government protests in the cities and an increase in violence by armed groups in the countryside.
“There are only two possibilities: leave things as they are […], which means more corruption, violence, hunger. Or change Colombia and lead it towards peace, prosperity and democracy,” Petro said on Sunday after voting in Bogotá.
His accession to the highest office would be a political earthquake in a country where conservatives have monopolized power for decades.
Dozens of journalists awaited Sunday evening the first statements of the winner of this first round at his campaign headquarters in the capital. Around them, supporters of the “Historical Pact” coalition celebrated with applause each count confirming the advance of their champion.
This is the third time that Mr. Petro has participated in the presidential election. This time, he has as a running mate for the vice-presidency an Afro-Colombian, Francia Marquez. The rise to the top of the state of this charismatic militant with a feminist and anti-racist discourse would also mark a turning point in Colombian politics, traditionally dominated by the same elites.
As some polls at the end of the campaign suggested, millionaire Rodolfo Hernandez, 77, comes in second place, with 28.20% of the vote.
Mr. Hernandez, former mayor of the city of Bucaramanga (north) and businessman with often outrageous or eccentric statements, is nicknamed by the local press the “Colombian Trump”. He is ahead of conservative candidate Federico Gutierrez by almost four points (23.87%).
“Absolute tranquility”
While Mr. Gutierrez was seen throughout the campaign as the challenger de Petro, these results mark the historic rout of the old Colombian right, like its mentor, ex-president Alvaro Uribe, today mired in legal disputes.
“Today the country has won because it does not want to continue another day with the same people who have brought us to the painful situation we know,” commented Mr. Hernandez in the evening from his stronghold of Bucaramanga. .
“We now know that there is a firm will among citizens to put an end to corruption as a system of government”, he said, judging that “the next few days will be decisive in determining the future of the country”. . “I am counting on you to win in the second round and thus be able to concretize this great path that you have opened today”, he concluded.
“A fortnight ago, no one could have imagined that a tiktokero [fan de TikTok] would be the strength of this first round “and that it could become” Petro’s worst nightmare “, commented in the evening the online media Cambio, summing up the surprise of the local press.
“This crude, nearly octogenarian engineer came out of nowhere, started to rise in the polls and succeeded, without leaving his home and thanks to a blitz on social media, to meet the aspirations of a part of the population and become the only candidate capable of beating Petro one-on-one,” Cambio said.
The turnout was 54.8%, and the ballot took place normally, according to the authorities. A plethora of international observers, including from the European Union and the Organization of American States, attended the polls, and nearly 300,000 police and military had been deployed throughout the territory, plagued by increasing violence by the armed groups in recent months.
Interior Minister Daniel Palacios spoke of “absolute tranquility, without major alteration of public order”, despite nearly 600 reported irregularities.