Colombian presidential elections

2022 - 5 - 30

Post cover — Image courtesy of "Vatican News"

Colombia: Presidential elections head toward second-round run off (Vatican News)

The Colombian Presidential Election will progress to a second-round runoff on June 19th, as no candidate has won fifty percent of the vote, for an ...

If he wins round two and the presidency, he is planning a radical change of social and economic direction. Hernandez is vowing to combat corruption and balance deep social inequality, with the skills of a successful businessman. 62-year-old Petro, an economist, a senator and the ex-mayor of the Capitol Bogota, as a young man, was a member of the M19 guerrilla group.

Colombia presidential elections – Vote for Petro, fight for socialism! (In Defence of Marxism)

Just as all of the polls predicted over the last three months, Gustavo Petro led the first round of voting for the Colombian presidential election with an ...

It is not impossible for Pacto Histórico to win in this second round, and the discrediting of Uribismo could be an enormous help to the coalition’s ability to govern in the first few months. All of this reflects the fact that corruption is not simply a question of the character of those in charge of the state. But Petro’s victory would fuel the organisation of a whole layer of youth and workers who have been confronted with repression in a country where more than 79 social activists have been murdered so far in 2022. But it will only win so long as it recognises that its great strength lies is not in recruiting figures from the status quo to its leadership, but in mobilising the millions of Colombian workers, peasants and youth who are willing to fight for change, including those who have abstained from voting in the first round. It is imperative that we instil them with a long-term perspective and help them understand that regardless of the results on 19 June, the struggle continues. It will only be on the basis of mass mobilisation with militant tactics (strikes, blockades, massive protests and trade union organisation) that Petro’s moderate programme of reforms can be implemented. But behind these anti-corruption speeches stands a former mayor of Bucaramanga who is on personal terms with Tomás Uribe, son of Álvaro. This is not to mention the fact that he is the only candidate who is in an ongoing trial for corruption. Regardless of the issue, his answer is to link it to the fight against corruption. But the findings of one poll that Hernández would tie with Petro in a second round, gave momentum to his campaign. However, his stance – that he is not the continuity candidate, but that he would continue what works – was enough to alienate a population looking for change and which has marched repeatedly for the last four years to get it. After all, Hernández started his presidential campaign through social networks (mainly TikTok) where he was the most followed presidential candidate for a long time (although he is now behind Petro). However, his rise was followed by a decline in March on account of his disinterest in participating in the primaries that month (which required joining a coalition with other parties) and his inability to propose a list for the legislative elections. And despite the predictions of many, Rodolfo Hernández, the right-wing demagogue who has used social networks as his main means of campaigning, managed to surpass Federico “Fico” Gutierrez, the capitalist establishment’s candidate who was backed by the bosses and the right.

REACTION: Petro and Hernández Lead Colombia's Presidential Race (Americas Quarterly)

Colombians delivered a stunning rejection of the traditional political class in the first round of presidential elections on Sunday. Gustavo Petro, a left-wing ...

The map of the results of the first round roughly coincides with that of the results of the plebiscite on the peace agreements held on October 2, 2016. During the presidential debates, Petro said that he would resort to mobilizing people in the streets, if Congress did not approve his legislative agenda. There are three facts to be highlighted from the results of the first round of the presidential elections. It is probable that the next president will be Hernández since Fico Gutiérrez has already given him his support. Hernández won all but 4 of the 123 municipalities of Boyacá department and all but 10 of 116 municipalities in Cundinamarca. First, it is clear he occupied a strategic space in the political field, at the intersection of anti-establishment and anti-Petro sentiment. If you add the votes given to Petro and Hernández, you pretty much get the 70% that had consistently, in every poll, expressed frustration with the current government. I am not sure this is the end of Uribe – he may have just recycled into something else. He will also draw backing from more progressive sectors such as the Green Alliance party and other parties that formed part of the center-left Hope Coalition. As polls had predicted, Gustavo Petro (Pacto Histórico) placed first in the first round of the Colombian presidential election on May 29 with a 40% lead. Colombians delivered a stunning rejection of the traditional political class in the first round of presidential elections on Sunday. Gustavo Petro, a left-wing former guerrilla, finished first with 40.3% of the votes—the best performance for the left in Colombia’s modern history. Federico Gutiérrez, a conservative who had the support of traditional political parties, finished third, winning only in his native Antioquia department.

Leftist candidate to run-off against millionaire who praised Hitler in ... (Morning Star Online)

LEFTIST candidate Gustavo Petro has won the first round of the Colombian elections. He will face a run-off against a millionaire businessman who has ...

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Colombia Elections: The End of Uribismo? (NACLA)

Colombia's first round presidential election resulted in a historic defeat for the country's hegemonic bloc. With 40.9 percent of the vote, support for leftist ...

As a representative of the traditional oligarchy, Santos sought to “clean up” the violent image of the Colombian state with a degree of success—and a Nobel prize. Since the 2016 peace accords with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Uribismo has ebbed.Since the 2016 peace accords with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Uribismo has ebbed. Speaking of Uribismo’s defeat in the first round is a statement that must be qualified. Uribismo—embodied by the policies of former president Álvaro Uribe, who governed from 2002 to 2010—is seen from the left as a repressive conglomeration, associated with paramilitarism and narcotrafficking. In office from 2010 to 2018, Santos proposed “moderation” in response to the armed conflict, even though he had been a prominent military actor as Uribe’s defense minister. It is, of course, also sustained by the export of cocaine. Indeed, Uribismo is better positioned to achieve this goal by supporting the outsider than with its own candidate in the race. That reality of Uribismo must be understood—especially if the goal is to overcome it. Will this betray Hernández’s supporters and sink his candidacy, or give him to necessary votes to propel him to the top office? Now, his messaging will have to shift, because Hernández’s “anti-Petrismo” is no longer representative of Uribismo, to which Petro has positioned himself as an alternative. Hernández, a centrist, pragmatic, politically incorrect populist, entered the race as a kind of outsider. With 23 percent, he failed to make it to the runoff.

Colombia Elections: 'The Next President is Either Going to ... (Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA))

The first round of the Presidential elections in Colombia was marked by the real possibility of a triumph of the political left, a stalemate in the peace ...

So, they are picking up a lot of things that may not be true about Petro. But it is certainly true that Petro is not going to privilege the bilateral relationship with the United States the way the last few presidents of Colombia have. They’re not condemned to a return to the kind of violence and ungovernability that we saw in the early 2000s. There is room even for a president whose popularity is continually 40 percent to actually leave the presidency with violent crime rates lower than when they came in, and with the amount of territory in the country under government control, larger than it was when they came in. It’s nation-building: gradually and steadily but inexorably reducing the amount of a territory that is off-limits to a democratic state. And the fact that you have a situation of an incredibly large group of people with a lot of needs that are the same or worse than Colombians’ needs. Whoever is president will have to address how to deal with the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela that has completely spilled over onto Colombia. You have more than 2.1 million Venezuelan migrants and refugees in Colombia. And the forces that will unite the opposition to Petro are probably not going to be the technocratic institutionalists. The combination of the pandemic, the hope that many people had for peace, and the fact that things are moving backwards in terms of security made people less interested in a technocrat or the usual candidate. In one of the few countries in Latin America that never even had a land reform, to actually agree to have a rural reform accord and to protect the political participation of the left was a big concession and a big deal. AI: If Petro wins by a landslide, and it’s not even close, he’ll have a popular mandate, and the opposition will have to accept it. This paved the way for a person like Petro, who’s more progressive and didn’t come from that hard left, to be in the position he is in today. This is a big transformation, not just in terms of what people look like, but more in thinking about what might be best for a broader set of Colombians. Debates surrounding racism, feminism, and the needs of the rural poor are all new to Colombian high politics.

'You Can't Combat Corruption with Phrases on TikTok': Gustavo ... (Toward Freedom)

Former militant-turned-politician Gustavo Petro had sharp words for his flashy opponent, who is thought to have won first-round presidential election votes ...

We have to stop what’s been happening for years,” said Jaime Rodriguez, 69, commenting on decades of paramilitary violence tied to the Colombian elites and U.S. control of the state. “It’s time for a change.” I think some people feel afraid of saying who they are voting for because it’s so contested and kind of dangerous for some of us.” The World Bank states 35 percent of Colombians live in poverty. She and her group of observers were assigned to visit polling stations that ranged between three and six. Meanwhile, the United States has for 22 years poured $4.5 billion in the form of military training and arms into Colombia. Jemima Pierre, an observer, said polling stations in Calí were categorized on a range of one to six, with six representing the most affluent neighborhoods. “Turnout is going to be key, but as we saw yesterday, there are areas where paramilitary forces intentionally prevented communities from voting,” he said. Paramilitaries in Colombia have guarded for years the production and flow of drugs out of the country. However, what might help Hernández win the presidency is an alliance of right-wing and center-right candidates who had run in the first round. During Sunday’s first-round of presidential election, Petro did not garner the 50 percent needed to avoid a second round on June 19. Election officials were not immediately available to comment to Toward Freedom.