Pre-vote polls display Petro forward however failing to get 50%. At the back of him are a populist actual property magnate promising financial rewards for tips about corrupt officers and a right-wing candidate who has attempted to distance himself from the generally disliked conservative present president, Iván Duque.
That is the second one presidential election for the reason that govt signed a peace settlement with the Innovative Armed Forces of Colombia, referred to as FARC, however the divisive settlement used to be no longer a central marketing campaign factor as issues like poverty and corruption garnered consideration.
It is going to be Petro’s 3rd try to be the South The united states’s nation president. He used to be defeated in 2018 via Duque, who isn’t eligible for re-election.
His victory would herald a brand new political generation in a rustic that has all the time been ruled via conservatives or moderates whilst marginalizing the left because of its perceived affiliation with the country’s armed warfare. He used to be as soon as a rebellion with the now-defunct M-19 motion and used to be granted amnesty after being jailed for his involvement with the crowd.
He has promised to make vital changes to the financial system, together with a tax reform, in addition to adjustments to how Colombia fights drug cartels and different armed teams. His primary rival for lots of the marketing campaign has been Federico Gutiérrez, a former mayor of Medellin who’s sponsored via maximum of Colombia’s conventional events and ran on a pro-business, financial expansion platform.
Gutiérrez has promised to struggle starvation with the extension of subsidies and public-private alliances in order that 10 lots of meals that move to waste each and every yr are destined for the poorest.
A Gallup ballot carried out previous this month confirmed that 75% of Colombians imagine the rustic is heading within the fallacious route and best 27% approve of Duque. A ballot final yr via Gallup discovered 60% of the ones puzzled had been discovering it onerous to get via on their family source of revenue.
The coronavirus pandemic set again the rustic’s anti-poverty efforts via no less than a decade. Reputable figures confirmed that 39% of Colombia’s 51.6 million citizens lived on lower than $89 a month final yr, which has a slight growth from the 42.5% fee from 2020.
In the meantime, the rustic’s inflation reached its best possible ranges in twenty years final month. Duque’s management has justified April’s 9.2% fee for April via pronouncing it is a part of an international inflationary phenomenon, however the argument has no longer tamed folks’s discontent over expanding meals costs.
Along with financial demanding situations, Colombia’s subsequent president will even have to stand a posh safety factor and corruption, which is a best fear of citizens.
The Crimson Pass final yr concluded Colombia reached its best possible stage of violence within the final 5 years. Even though the peace settlement with the FARC has been applied, the territories and drug trafficking routes that it as soon as managed are in dispute between different armed teams such because the Nationwide Liberation Military, or ELN, a guerrilla based within the Nineteen Sixties, the dissidents of the FARC and the Extended family del Golfo cartel.
Duque’s successor must come to a decision whether or not to renew peace talks with the ELN, which he suspended in 2019 after an assault killed greater than 20 folks.
Acutely aware of citizens’ corruption worries, actual property magnate Rodolfo Hernández has positioned the problem on the middle of his marketing campaign. Hernández, the previous mayor of Bucaramanga, strangely rose within the ultimate stretch of the marketing campaign after promising to “blank” the rustic of corruption and to donate his wage amongst different measures.
The opposite applicants at the poll are Sergio Fajardo, former mayor of Medellín and candidate for the middle coalition; Christian chief John Milton Rodríguez; and the conservative Enrique Gómez.
Garcia Cano reported from Caracas, Venezuela.
