Colombia faces important election
BOGOTA, Colombia — Colombians can count on one thing: The country’s presidential politics will drastically change after Sunday’s runoff election.
The contest in the South American country lacks a front-runner and presents voters with a choice between the man who could become the first leftist to lead the nation and a populist millionaire who promises to end corruption.
The guaranteed departure from long-governing centrist or right-leaning presidents has led both sides to play into people’s fears. Want a former rebel as president or an unpredictable businessman?
Polls show Gustavo Petro and Rodolfo Hernández — both former mayors — practically tied since advancing to the runoff following the May 29 first-round election in which they beat four other candidates. They haven’t debated each other, but a court ordered them, Wednesday, to do so.
Petro, a senator, is in his third attempt to become president, and his strongest rival is again not another candidate but voters’ marginalization of the left due to its perceived association with the nation’s armed conflict. He was once a rebel with the now-defunct M-19 movement and was granted amnesty after being jailed for his involvement with the group.
“Anyone but Petro,” reads graffiti in northern Bogota, the capital city he governed in the mid-2010s. Petro, 62, obtained 40% of the votes during last month’s election and Hernández 28%, but the difference quickly narrowed as Hernández began to garner the so-called antipetrista votes.
“The worst-case scenario that Petro could have faced is Rodolfo Hernández. Why? Because (Hernández) offers a change, he is also someone anti-establishment,” said Silvana Amaya, a senior analyst with the firm Control Risks. “What Colombians chose in the first round are the two candidates that represent change. They’re saying, and they’re sending the message, that they are tired of the system. They’re tired of the status quo and they are tired of the traditional politicians telling them what to do.”
Should Petro win, he would join the list of leftist political victories in Latin America fueled by voters’ thirst for change at a time of deep dissatisfaction with economic conditions and widening inequality. Chile, Peru and Honduras elected leftist presidents, in 2021, and in Brazil, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is leading the polls for this year’s presidential election.
Petro has promised to make significant adjustments to the economy, including tax reform, and to change how Colombia fights drug cartels and other armed groups.
As mayor, he generated conflicting opinions. People praised his ambitious social projects but also criticized his ability to deliver on promises and some improvised decisions. His mandate ended in controversy after the Attorney General’s Office removed him and barred him from holding public office for 15 years for “very serious” faults in the implementation of a city cleanup program.
The dispute ended before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which, in 2020, declared Colombia responsible for violations of Petro’s political rights.
He has tried to assure Colombians he won’t follow the path of some other leftist leaders in the region who engineered changes to term limit laws to keep themselves in power.