Always governed by right-wing conservatives or liberals and fed up with a country in crisis, the Colombians might this Sunday bow down for the first time to the left and get on the train of that trend that crosses Latin America once more.
The senator and former guerrilla Gustavo Petro, 62 years old and favorite in all the polls, believes that he can achieve it today, Sunday, although the polls indicate that he will have to contest a ballot on June 19, in which he also leads the voting intention.
His nemesis, the 47-year-old right-winger Federico Gutiérrez, is emerging as the most likely rival in a polarized country like few times, but which cries out for change in the face of the economic ravages of the pandemic, the uptick in violence, corruption, inequality and the wounds left by the repression of massive protests.
Six candidates are in the deck, but two are the favorites. The outsider Rodolfo Hernández, a 77-year-old businessman, approaches Gutiérrez according to the polls.
Petro, who is running for the presidency for the third time, lost four years ago to the right-wing Iván Duque, who by law cannot run for re-election.
That second place in 2018 earned him a seat in Congress from where he accumulated support to fight for revenge for the government of the country of 50 million inhabitants, an ally of the United States and the largest exporter of cocaine.
Colombia might thus join the left that gravitates in the majority of South American countries, with the exception of Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil, where in October the possible return of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is at stake.
-Disenchantment-
Paradoxically, in Colombia all forces are asking for a change, following the unpopular government of Duque (67%) that unleashed an unprecedented social outburst.
“There is a lot of frustration, a lot of anger and I think Petro capitalized on that,” Michael Shifter, a professor at Georgetown University, told AFP.
The right in power arrives weakened. Its natural leader, former president Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010), a former electoral protagonist, is in the doldrums due to legal entanglements.
“Two feelings sum up the voter: the need for change due to that discontent and distrust,” says Jorge Restrepo, a professor at the Javeriana University. The range of candidates is completed by the centrist Sergio Fajardo (5.1%), the evangelical John Milton Rodríguez (0.6%) and the right-wing Enrique Gómez (0.3%).
Abstention, which has historically been around 50%, might break.
-Peace and polarization-
A new duel between opposing forces is the expression of a country divided following the signing of the peace agreement signed in 2016.
The historic pact that disarmed the FARC rebels “opened a space for left politician” that during the armed conflict carried a “strong stigma” for its “association with the guerrillas”, says Elizabeth Dickinson, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.
Duque unsuccessfully tried to modify the agreement, and almost six years later all the candidates promised to continue its implementation in the face of international criticism for the murder of 332 ex-combatants and the resurgence of violence.
For Dickinson the elections they will also respond to the dichotomy between “saving its implementation” or “burying the agreement”. And in the sights: a possible resumption of negotiations with the ELN guerrilla.
After six decades of armed conflict, the advance of the left in the electoral spectrum, it disturbed a new actor: the military leadership broke the silence and turned once morest Petro. Very popular for their fight once morest the guerrillas, the armed forces remained on the fringes of politics, adhering to a law that prevented them from voting and deliberating.
Petro militated in the M-19, an urban guerrilla that signed the peace in 1990, before going into exile for a time in Europe and returning to his country to become a legislator and then mayor of Bogotá (2012-2015).
-Weathered weather-
Threats once morest the candidates and suspicions of fraud permeated the campaign.
Under the specter of the assassination that in the past stopped the presidential aspirations of five politicians in the 20th century with bullets, the main candidates denounced risks to their security: Petro; his vice-presidential formula, the Afro environmentalist Francia Márquez; and Gutierrez.
And in the final stretch, the distrust in the electoral process that had a hurried performance in the legislative elections on March 13 encouraged the voices of fraud.
The fact that the electoral authority “has rejected” the international audit of the software to be used in the count, a request from the left“it generates many doubts regarding what is going to happen on Sunday,” Petro said this Friday in a virtual forum.
In one of the most unequal countries in the world and impoverished (39%) by the pandemic, the opposition leader proposes an economy demarcated from oil and an environmental and progressive agenda on social issues.
On his side, Gutiérrez is struggling to distance himself from Duque, although he defends related causes: security, private investment, an austere state and traditional family values.
It also tries to associate Petro with the government of the decayed Venezuela, whose crisis pushed 1.8 million migrants to Colombia. But the leftist distances himself.
“We are very consolidated in second place (…), today we are close to 30% [en las encuestas]” and “in the second round we are going to win,” Gutiérrez was encouraged on W Radio.
“This whole election, to be blunt, is regarding Petro. Win or lose, the result will be regarding him,” says Dickinson.
The figure of Francia Márquez (40), who might be the first black in the vice presidency, waves the feminist flags and the buried racism in the country.
The center arrived at this contest divided and suffocated.
