Colombians will head to the polls on Might 29 to elect their subsequent president after an usually heated and divisive marketing campaign.
Bogota, Colombia – As Colombia prepares for the primary spherical of its extremely contested presidential elections on Sunday, the phrase that appears to be on everybody’s thoughts is “change”.
Up till not too long ago, the race has been largely dominated by two candidates which have grown to symbolize the political and social divisions that cut up the polarised South American nation.
On one facet, left-wing former insurgent fighter Gustavo Petro and his vice-presidential working mate, Afro-Colombian activist Francia Marquez, have overwhelmingly led polls with a promise of reducing inequality and poverty and an anti-establishment message.
On the opposite facet is conservative civil engineer Federico “Fico” Gutierrez, who has trailed Petro however is attracting the help of many right-wing Colombians in addition to the nation’s political institution, which fears what electing Petro might imply.
But, in current weeks, a curveball candidate has quickly gained momentum, throwing a as soon as clear-cut race into unsure waters.
“There are not any clear winners proper now,” mentioned Sandra Borda, a political science professor at Universidad de los Andes in Bogota, the capital. “There’s lots of uncertainty of what's going to occur.”
‘A complete change’
Rodolfo Hernandez, a right-leaning unbiased populist who has largely lagged behind within the race to this point, has made a shocking bounce in reputation in a number of polls.
He has gone from having 9.6 p.c of the vote final month to 19.1 p.c, in keeping with a Might 19 ballot by Centro Nacional de Consultoria, placing him neck-and-neck with conservative competitor Gutierrez.
“The Colombian individuals and I are the one ones who can beat Petro within the second spherical,” Hernandez not too long ago mentioned, tweeting out ballot outcomes. “I can be your president.”
However the populist candidate, usually in comparison with former US President Donald Trump, has set political observers like Borda on edge.
Hernandez, 77, amassed a fortune from a building enterprise within the northeastern Santander area. The previous mayor of the small northern metropolis of Bucaramanga, he gained notoriety for his blunt, unfiltered means of talking and his guarantees to get rid of endemic corruption.
Through the years, the now-candidate has been sued by a firefighter after Hernandez referred to as the hearth division “fats and lazy”, made xenophobic feedback about Venezuelan migrant girls, and, in 2018, hit a metropolis councilman within the face whereas on digicam after a heated argument.
In a 2016 interview with a Colombian radio station, he additionally advised the hosts, “I'm an enormous follower of an ideal German thinker: Adolf Hitler.” Hernandez later apologised, saying the particular person he really meant to quote was Albert Einstein.
But his anti-corruption message and place as a relative outsider have gained the help of many Colombians, together with 74-year-old Ligia del Carmen Roa, who stood exterior one among Hernandez’s marketing campaign centres in Bogota.
She wore a vibrant yellow t-shirt with Hernandez’s face on it, honking horns and handing out fliers to passersby. Most of the volunteers, she mentioned, had been like her: from a poorer neighbourhood and hopeful that Hernandez was completely different from the politicians which have traditionally excluded them.
“It could be an about-face [for Colombia], he could be a complete change,” del Carmen Roa advised Al Jazeera. “And that’s what Colombia wants proper now. It’s pressing. He’s the one that may get us out of this dangerous place we’re in.”
The vote
If any candidate wins greater than half the votes on Sunday, they'll change into Colombia’s subsequent president, taking on from Ivan Duque, who defeated Petro in 2018 with the backing of Colombia’s political elite and has now change into some of the unpopular leaders in many years.
If that fifty p.c threshold will not be met, the 2 high candidates will transfer on to the following spherical of elections in late June.
Petro holds round 40 p.c help, in keeping with current polls, whereas conservatives Gutierrez and Hernandez every have about 20 p.c, respectively.
Whereas Petro is predicted to win handily within the first spherical, if Petro and Hernandez go head-to-head in a second-round vote on June 19, polling means that it is going to be a detailed battle.
Each candidates are talking to grievances held by giant segments of the Colombian citizens, which have solely grown lately, mentioned Arlene Tickner, a political science professor at Bogota’s Universidad de Rosario.
“Hernandez really expresses lots of the discourses of the institution whereas on the similar time presenting himself as one thing completely different,” Tickner advised Al Jazeera. “And he's clearly far more conservative than Petro.”
As poverty and inequality worsened throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Colombia has seen a surge in armed group violence within the countryside, one thing critics say is a product of failures by the federal government to implement the nation’s 2016 peace accords.
In the meantime, mass anti-government protests final yr made world headlines after they had been met by a violent backlash by Colombian safety forces.
In Might, an Invamer ballot discovered that almost 75 p.c of Colombians felt their nation was headed down the improper path.
Threats of violence
That public frustration was first efficiently harnessed by Petro, who gained traction early on within the election season.
“Petro is completely different. He’s completely different from all the opposite political events. He proposes good concepts, makes good arguments,” Andres Torres, a 25-year-old graphic designer in Bogota, advised Al Jazeera.
“Colombia wants change,” mentioned Torres, including that he would help anybody apart from Gutierrez, working below the right-wing coalition Equipo por Colombia. “‘Fico’ simply represents this continuation of what we received 4 years in the past with Duque.”
However analysts and electoral watchdogs even have expressed concern about electoral turmoil and violence.
Final week, Colombia’s Ombudsman’s Workplace, a human rights watchdog, despatched out an alert warning that almost 300 municipalities within the nation are at excessive or excessive threat of human rights violations and electoral violence.
The watchdog mentioned that almost half the nation faces some stage of threat.
The issues come primarily from The Gulf Clan armed group, which held almost a 3rd of Colombia below siege earlier this month after their former chief was extradited to the USA on drug expenses.
In the meantime, Petro and Francia Marquez, his vice-presidential candidate, have needed to communicate to giant audiences behind police shields after alleged assassination plots and threats. “The spectre of demise accompanies us,” Petro advised the AFP information company in February.
Others like Elizabeth Dickinson, a senior Colombia analyst on the Worldwide Disaster Group, have raised alarm about Petro and different candidates stirring issues of electoral fraud within the days main as much as the primary spherical.
In a presidential debate earlier than the vote, candidates spent almost a half-hour speaking about issues about electoral fraud in March’s congressional elections, which Dickinson mentioned had been important and never adequately addressed by the federal government.
However she additionally mentioned that candidates have over-amplified the concerns as a political device.
“The entire candidates, no matter their political persuasions, are laying the groundwork to have the ability to declare fraud if the outcome will not be what they want,” Dickinson advised Al Jazeera. “That is actually harmful.”
A push for change
But when both Petro or Hernandez is elected, it could comply with a bigger pattern throughout Latin America of voters turning away from the figures and political events which have held energy for many years.
Final April, little-known rural faculty trainer Pedro Castillo shocked Peru by defeating institution candidate Keiko Fujimori. In November, Xiomara Castro, a socialist feminine candidate with institution ties, pulled off an astonishing victory in Honduras’ elections and ended the right-wing Nationwide Celebration’s 12-year grip on energy.
And in December, Chileans elected former scholar activist Gabriel Boric – who has promised to cut back endemic inequalities, and concentrate on gender, Indigenous and environmental points – because the nation’s youngest-ever president.
For voters like Hernandez supporter Ligia del Carmen Roa, who packed up a automobile of marketing campaign supplies simply down the road from Petro voter Torres, one factor is obvious.
“We’ve been on this similar sample for over 70 years, and we wish to escape of it,” she mentioned.
“And proper now's the second.”
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