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Gustavo Petro, from the Historical Pact, and Rodolfo Hernández, arrive at the elections in an almost equal situation
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The appointment with the polls takes place amidst ghosts of irregularities in the scrutiny and armed violence
Colombia this Sunday elects its new president in the midst of upheavals. On the one hand, the very close fight between Gustavo Petro and Rodolfo Hernández for the vote of 39 million citizens. The polls have predicted a tense scrutiny and a winner of the contest by a slim margin. The other singularity of this contest is that both Petroof the leftist Historical Pact, like his opponent, do not come from the traditional parties. As never before, the historical elite is just a spectator of an outcome that shows to what extent Colombia is changing since the end of the armed conflict, in 2016, and the social outbursts against the right-wing government of Ivan Dukein 2019 and 2021.
Petro was guerrilla, but, for decades, he has been a man of the political system. the tycoon HernándezInstead, beyond a brief stint as mayor of Bucaramanga, he comes from the world of building which has enabled him to amass a fortune 100 million dollars. The “old man from Tiktok”, who amassed his electoral power from social media, is, in a sense, the antisystem candidate by excellence. Some analysts consider that he is more like the Salvadoran Nayib Bukele what to Donald Trump. Hernández has received the support of the Conservative and Liberal parties. Uribismo endured the spite of being despised by the engineer and has also called for a vote for him: it would be worse if he won the moderate left, slightly associated with Cold War communism. A sector of liberalism has rebelled against his leadership and will opt for the Historical Pact. Part of the political center seems to lean, somewhat unwillingly, in the same direction. Beyond these alignments, will be the undecidedalmost two million, those who have in their hands the name of the winner.
Not just the ghost of fraud, fueled by Petro and permanently denied by Duque, has been flying over that country for days. The Electoral Observation Mission (EOM) itself has admitted that it is the “most violent electoral period in the last 12 years“Only so far in 2022 were assassinated 86 social leaders and 21 former members of the FARC, a group that laid down its arms in 2016. Violence is in the air. The Ombudsman’s Office has confirmed that this Sunday there is a “high and extreme risk” of armed actions in 290 municipalities with the presence of FARC or ELN dissidents, far-right paramilitary groups or drug traffickers.
The weight of inequality
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The dispute between Petro and Hernández is far from being the product of chance. Although the Colombian economy has recovered from the effects of covid-19, with growth of 10.6% in 2021 and prospects of 6% this year, 40% of the population lives in poverty. Colombia is the third country in Latin America with the most unequal income distributions, behind Brazil and Guatemala. The OECD estimates on average that a person born in the social group that receives the lowest income takes four generations to become part of the middle class. However, Colombia breaks that rule: 11 generations are needed to move from one social universe to another. That is one of the reasons that explain the successive outbreaks and the opening of a part of society to other electoral alternatives.
The second round has been preceded by an avalanche of fake news but also from truthful information that only the counting of votes will allow us to infer has influenced the predilections of citizens. Magazine Change published a few hours before the elections the video of a “exotic celebration” on a yacht sailing off the coast of Miami. There is Hernández, the new champion of the fight against the corrupt, along with “presumed international lobbyists” and “joyful young women.”