Gustavo Petro leads vote intentions in the Colombian presidential election – something unprecedented for the South American country’s left. Conservatives and populists are also vying for a seat in the second round. Colombians will go to the polls this Sunday (29/05) to elect the country’s next president. Almost 39 million voters were summoned to choose who will succeed the current president Iván Duque and run the country between 2022 and 2026. Six candidates are vying for the race, after two withdrawals, and the election has an unprecedented fact: for the first time a candidate of left leads the polls.
In a country tired of the violence of the armed conflict, drug trafficking and crime, corruption, poverty and inequality that fueled popular protests in 2019 and 2021, Gustavo Petro, candidate of the left-wing coalition Pacto Histórico, found fertile ground for his speech of change.
A 62-year-old former guerrilla who commanded the mayor of Bogotá and who now holds a seat in the Senate, Petro is running for the third time for the Presidency of the Republic. He appears with between 35% and 40% of voting intentions in different polls. His name is practically confirmed in the second round.
Among Petro’s proposals are a reform to eliminate taxes on products from the basic basket and taxation of large fortunes and advance with the agrarian reform, in addition to resuming negotiations with the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN), which were interrupted by the current president, Ivan Duque.
He also proposed imposing an expiration date for the operation of the country’s oil industry, through the suspension of exploration contracts, with the aim of moving towards “a productive, non-extractivist economy” and making a “transition to clean energies”. ”. This last proposal still scares the markets, as oil extraction represents about 5% of Colombian GDP.
In a meeting with representatives of American companies, Petro compared oil and coal – two legal industries – with cocaine and said that “they are three poisons”, generating even more controversy.
Petro’s campaign also highlights the choice of his deputy, the Afro-Colombian leader Francia Márquez, who could become the first black woman to assume the second post of the country’s Executive.
Who will face Petro?
But there are still doubts about who will face Petro in the second round. In second place in the polls is conservative Federico “Fico” Gutiérrez, the 47-year-old former mayor of Medellín, who appears with between 20% and 25% of voting intentions. Defender of moderate liberalism, he proposes to increase investments in infrastructure, which has made him the favorite candidate in the market.
Gutiérrez is closely followed by independent populist businessman Rodolfo Hernández, 77, who accounts for 19% of voting intentions, and who has been called the “tropical Trump” by the local press and who rose in the polls in the days before the first round. .
Recently, Hernández won the support of former hostage of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla Íngrid Betancourt, the only woman running in the election, who decided to withdraw from the race due to poor results in the polls. A candidate for the League of Governors Anti-Corruption movement, created by himself, Hernández avoids defining himself politically, although his proposals tend more towards populism.
In his political career, he made the title of “engineer” something inseparable from his name, giving the idea that because he was rich, he would not need to steal from the public coffers.
The businessman arrived in the race for the presidency with some controversies along the way, such as an interview in 2016 in which he said he admired Adolf Hitler or when he assaulted a councilor in 2018.
A key factor in these elections will be abstention. In 2018, almost half of the population, about 47% of Colombians, decided not to go to vote, while in the referendum on peace, in 2016, abstention was 62% and was one of the keys to the victory of the ‘no’ to the agreement with the FARC.
If there is no winner, the second round will be held on June 19 with the two candidates with the most votes.
jps (EFE, Lusa, AFP, ots)
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