On Sunday, May 29, Colombians will elect their next president. Since the last presidential elections in 2018, the left has been very successful, especially with the candidate Gustavo Petro.
It is followed by Colombian youth, who demand change and improvement of living conditions in the country. But the country is divided between the enthusiasm for change and historical fear of the left.
In Colombia, governments with a majority of the right or of the extreme right succeeded each other for decades, but this year things could change if Petro were to win.
When Colombians are asked about the upcoming elections, very varied answers are obtained. And it is that the popularity of the left in the polls does not leave the population indifferent.
Juan Toro, for example, is 33 years old, is a company administrator and is a bit confused: “I think there are too many people involved, like a new candidate comes out of nowhere, there are many opportunists, many people wanting attention. And in the end this ends up diverting general attention and confusing, ”he says.
“Gustavo Petro has been seeking the presidency for a few years now. I think that people are tired of following the same leaders and want a change, any change. So I think that Gustavo Petro has known how to use this tool and has been insistent on his ideas”, he adds.
Followers of Gustavo Petro, in an act in Medellín, this Friday. Photo: AP
“A Second Venezuela”
María Peláez Álvarez, 60, has already chosen her candidate, and it will not be the one on the left: “Until now, I want the president of Colombia to be Sergio Fajardo. I am from Hope Center. We must think very, very, very well who we are going to elect as president”, she affirms.
The situation in Venezuela scares him: “If we are not aware, as Colombians, we can later become a second Venezuela.”
His neighbor, Alicia Echeverri, confesses that she is not very sure about going to vote because “one sees a lot of robbery, many promises that are not kept,” and because she is also afraid of “living a complete Venezuela” if Petro becomes president.
“That is why one becomes distrustful, very distrustful, and does not provoke voting,” he emphasizes.
desire for change
For now, Petro remains the favorite in the polls in the first and second round of the presidential election. The support of young people would be one of his strengths. In fact, they have been marching through the streets for months calling for change.
Last year, Colombia lived to the rhythm of demonstrations and roadblocks. Unprecedented social discontent, a consequence of several reform projects by the government of President Iván Duque.
Among the protesters were many young people, boys who created their own anthem of the resistance inspired by the national anthem of the country and the music of the movie Star Wars.
An advertisement for Gustavo Petro, in Soacha, Colombia. Photo: AP
At the origin of this movement, young musicians and an orchestra director from Medellín, Susana Boreal, participated.
“First, the national anthem of Colombia is made but in a minor key, and also mixed with the imperial march of Star Wars. The Stormtroopers We compare them with the agents of the ESMAD (Mobile Anti-riot Squads), because it is that force that the State commands, it is the way they have to impose themselves through violence,” Susana details.
More than 400 musicians performed this anthem, which was broadcast throughout the country and became viral on social networks. For Susana and her colleagues, it was about saying “No to repression in Colombia” and “Yes to change.”
“We live in a very complicated situation in that country, where it is very difficult to live. What is required? Simply to have guarantees to be able to have and lead a dignified life, under equal conditions, and put an end to that social injustice gap which is so wide in our country. Because there are some people who are very privileged, but they are very few”, denounces the young woman.
The 2021 protests hacked the government of Iván Duque, in Colombia. Photo: AFP
mobilized youth
So this year, Susana will vote for the left, for the candidate Gustavo Petro: “If you listen to the presidential debates, the speeches of all the candidates, you realize that Gustavo Petro is the one who has the country in mind, I mean, he really has it in his head,” he says.
“We know him from before, he was also a presidential candidate in 2018, he was mayor of Bogotá, and because of the way the country is right now, we need something totally different from what has governed us for 200 years. So I believe a lot in Gustavo Petro, I believe that he can be a very important person to begin the process of transformation of that country”, he adds.
Like Susana, thousands of young people would be opting for this candidate. In the last elections of 2018 -in which he reached the ballot but lost to Iván Duque-, they walked next to him in each meeting and mobilized on social networks in his favor. Today political debates continue in all the big cities.
At the headquarters of the Historical Pact Party, the teams well understood the importance of young people, and the leftist political coalition is counting on them to win.
“We have three million new young voters in Colombia, but young people were also the heart, as happened in Chile, of a great social movement against a regime that has governed badly, that has spoiled peace,” says Roy Barreras, leader of parliamentary debates and representative of the party.
“I signed the Peace Agreement five years ago on behalf of the Colombian State, and today what we have is a return to violence. But in addition (there were) some tax regulations that gave resources to the mega-rich of the country and that did not allow The economy will be reactivated from peace. The young people knocked down that reform, and the young people are a great potential in the change that the Pact will be, “he adds.
According to him, there is no way that Petro will lose the presidential election this year: “We only have two possibilities of not winning: that they kill the candidate, which has happened in Colombia, because here there are dark forces of drug trafficking and paramilitarism who want kill Gustavo Petro, or make us fraud. It is the first time in 200 years that Colombia can have a government of the democratic left accompanied by a coalition of the center, and I believe that this time it will happen”, he enthuses.
Barreras tries to dispel fears to the left: “We want to convey that calm: the government of the Historical Pact will be a stable, balanced government, with a serious economy.”
But that doesn’t mean the game is won. Because the past of the favorite candidate in the polls weighs heavily in the debates. Former mayor of Bogotá, also He was a combatant in the M19 movement, a Colombian guerrilla who participated in the armed conflict of the 1970s.
weakened right
According to the French professor and political scientist Yann Basset, who has taught Political Science for more than 15 years in Colombia, for the moment, despite the criticism and his history, Petro is the favorite rather because the right is weakened.
“Historically, Colombia was not a right-wing country. There was a grand center coalition system, the National Front of the 50s and 60s of the last century… A pact in which the two major parties, the Liberal and the Conservative, agreed to govern. The right appeared later, at the beginning of this century, as a kind of reaction to the armed conflict, which was going on too long. And it was hegemonic during the first decade of the 21st century and dominant in the following decade”, explains
“But after the management of Iván Duque, who today is really very unpopular, one has the impression that this right is discredited. And that is where an opening appears for the left-wing candidate Petro, who had been defeated in the second round of 2018, I can, this time, try to win”, says Basset.
The other criticism that opponents regularly bring up is the risk of Colombia experiencing a crisis like the one in Venezuela.
Yann Basset sees this as a political strategy to discredit the left: “It is a campaign argument that has a real basis. The Venezuelan system was a real disaster and it causes a lot of fear,” he says.
“It is true that all the Colombian leftist currents maintained relations with Chavismo. Now, Chavismo is a phenomenon that is very typical of Venezuela and it is very difficult for it to be repeated in absolutely identical terms in another country. Petro is very different and above all the institutional context is really very different. He has very different proposals and much more moderate in the background. But it is true that he has a style that generates fear, that appears quite authoritarian, very personal, and that is why he is compared with Chavez,” he argues.
The final decision will be made by Colombians at the polls on May 29. The high abstention of the last elections will undoubtedly be decisive. Young people seem to follow the situation carefully and to be involved in the vote.
Source: RFI
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