Before the victory of the left, the main consequence of the May 29 elections is the presumed exhaustion of the political cycle of uribismfounded by former president Álvaro Uribe with his arrival in government in 2002 and constituted, following two decades, the main axis of Colombia’s internal and external policy.
In this sense, for the first time two candidates have access to the ballottage, Gustavo Petro and Rodolfo Hernandez, not identified with Uribismo, whose official representative, Federico “Fico” Gutiérrez barely reached third place with 24%. This is the worst defeat of the ruling party and of the current president Iván Duque, who thus fails to ensure his continuity at the polls.
The “erroneous” defense of Adolf Hitler when he tried to exalt the figure of Albert Einstein, criticism of the role of women in politics and in everyday life, verbal (and even physical) violence once morest opponents, etc. fueled the controversy and public visibility of Hernández, until a month ago a peripheral character in Colombian politics and whose level of preferences began to increase as the rise of the ruling party Gutiérrez stopped.
However, it would be reductionist to characterize Hernández simply as “populist”. In any case, what is fundamental here is his conservative thinking (and at various points reactionary) in the face of the current political agenda in Colombia. With strong anchorage in media and social networksthe now called “Colombian Trump” might succeed, in principle, by adding the votes of his former rival Gutiérrez, thus becoming the official candidate of the establishment (Which at the same time might weaken him by placing him as a representative of the political class he claims to be critical of).
For his part, Gustavo Petro achieved what no other candidate on the left had achieved in the entire history of Colombia: to become an exclusive political referent, whose appeal goes beyond a traditional working or peasant class and that, instead, challenges the society mobilized in the protests of recent years.
His bid to succeed in the second round is undoubtedly more complex than that of Hernández: faced with the difficulties in adding votes from the other candidates, and as a guarantee of success, he raises the possibility of a million more voters than those there was on May 29.
Without being “anti-systems” (a term used to misclassify both candidates), what will actually be at stake in the second round will be the type of confrontation chosen once morest the establishment, fully identified with a Uribe that, in the electoral defeat, find a way to strengthen yourself and endure in the face of the changes that lie ahead.
If Hernández will seek the expansion and incorporation of peripheral sectors like the ones he represents, Petro, on the other hand, will be the one who must take on the greatest challenges in the face of the elites and regional oligarchies.
Three questions in conclusion:
What capacity will Uribismo have to reconfigure itself in a new stage of Colombian political life in which, in principle, it is already known that no representative of this current will gain access to the government?
In this sense, it is conceivable that Uribismo will once once more be in the opposition (as happened during the Santos government, especially since the signing of the Peace Accords), although we can imagine that there will be a fluid dialogue in the event that Hernández get to the government.
In case Petro wins the second round, How will a foreign policy be considered that, for more than a century, was established on the basis of unconditional alignment with the United States?
Undoubtedly, questions arise, in principle, regarding Colombia’s membership in NATOto the billionaire economic support from Washington for the fight once morest drug trafficking, etc.
In the event that Hernández wins, how will he be able to ensure his own governability once morest a 40% that opted for a radical change in Colombian politics, and whose institutionality was put to the test in the past protests of 2020 and, especially, 2021?
Whoever wins in the June 19 elections wins, it is clear that, faced with a highly polarized scenario, the contradictions that cross Colombian society will intensify the conflictive scenarios in the face of two candidates whose victory will depend on the fear caused by the eventual arrival of the rival to the government.
Daniel Kersffeld has a doctorate in Latin American Studies (UNAM). Researcher CONICET-Torcuato di Tella University.
