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candidates would go to the first round following the resignation of Germán Vargas Lleras.
The hours are numbered. This Friday is the deadline to confirm the vice-presidential candidates and formulas that will be on the ballot in the first round, on Sunday, May 29. Given the rush, the candidates are making moves to forge alliances that ensure a robust electoral flow, as well as governability in the new Congress.
Candidates like Gustavo Petro, Federico Gutiérrez, Sergio Fajardo and Íngrid Betancourt entered that race and began to build bridges to define the new chips that might join their campaigns; the first three are putting into play the empty box of their vice-presidential formulas, and in all three cases the optioned would be female figures.
Along with the movements of these pieces of the political puzzle, this Wednesday Germán Vargas Lleras met with the leaders of his party, Cambio Radical, to announce that he will not aspire to the Presidency and instead will join that electoral negotiation, dialoguing with candidates.
Women would be protagonists
In the definition of the vice-presidential formulas, a rattle has been formed in which the names of women stand out. As happened between 2018 and 2022, in the next four years a woman might continue in the second most important position in the Government.
Thinking regarding this matter, Petro met with the four candidates that he defeated in the Historical Pact consultation, since he sees the possibility of allying himself with César Gaviria, with whom he would have tried to agree on the delivery of the vice presidency to one of his sons (Simón or María Paz Gaviria) in exchange for the official support of liberalism for the first round and also in the Senate and Chamber.
The option that the leader of Human Colombia would be considering in the face of this possible frustrated alliance is Francia Márquez, who surprised the polls by obtaining 783,160 votes. “We’ll see in a collective agreement effort,” assured Petro, who continues to seek rapprochement with Gilberto Tobón, a former candidate for the Senate.
In the awnings of Fajardo several names sound and the one that has the most strength is Mabel Lara, who was burned in her aspiration to the Senate by the closed list of New Liberalism, a party whose leader, Juan Manuel Galán, is an ally of the former governor of Antioquia.
In that Fajardo rattle, Cecilia López, former Minister of Agriculture, also sounds like a possible formula; Juanita Goebertus, representative to the Chamber; Mauricio Armitage, former mayor of Cali, and Íngrid Betancourt, today a presidential candidate, came to ring.
“I have met with Carlos Amaya, Jorge Robledo, Íngrid Betancourt, Alejandro Gaviria, Juan Manuel Galán, Humberto de la Calle. None of those people will be my vice-presidential formula,” Fajardo clarified.
Betancourt, whose formula is Colonel (r) José Luis Esparza, confronted the rumors and denied that he plans to join the Paisa politician and, on the contrary, invited him to join his candidacy. “I invite the Hope Center Coalition to join this project,” said the former senator while stating that this coalition had the lowest vote among the consultations (2.2 million votes) due to Alejandro Gaviria’s alliances with ” political machines.
Is the anti-Petro bloc taking hold?
Just as the candidates of the left and center-left do, on the spectrum of the right the ranks continue to close and everything points to a possible electoral support around Federico Gutiérrez, who began a series of meetings with former presidents.
The first to give clues to that alliance that would seek to confront Gustavo Petro, the most optioned, according to the polls, was the Democratic Center, since its candidate Óscar Iván Zuluaga gave up running and decided to join the ranks of the former mayor of Medellín.
After this resignation, that party met with its natural leader, Álvaro Uribe, who ordered the formation of a committee and consultations to confirm whether the community supports leaving completely with Gutiérrez, which seems to be the most viable option due to his political affinity.
Another who also got off the presidential bus was Vargas Lleras, who clarified that he will begin to meet with candidates to define which one he will support, but one day before this announcement he spoke precisely with an emissary from ‘Fico’, the director of the Party of the U, Dilian Francisca Toro. In addition, the role of Alejandro Char will be key to this union.
Through this link, the candidate of the Equipo por Colombia coalition is seeking to form a front that prevents Petro from coming to power, for which he also acknowledged that he will directly approach Uribe and also former president Andrés Pastrana.
Gutiérrez’s electoral strength not only depends on these dialogues with former presidents, since he already has the electoral support of La U, the Conservative Party, Mira and the House of Char, allies in his presidential coalition. He would also have the opportunity to talk with the candidates John Milton Rodríguez (Colombia Justa Libres) and Enrique Gómez Mártinez (Salvación Nación), staunch opponents of Petro.
César Gaviria might also join this anti-Petro bloc, who has become the protagonist of the negotiations (see To Know More) and this Wednesday he met with Gutiérrez to analyze whether or not he will support his campaign.
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Millions of people are eligible to vote in the first presidential round.