With 98% of the votes counted, early effects confirmed left-wing candidate Gustavo Petro with simply over 40% of the votes, the populist former mayor of Bucaramanga Rodolfo Hernandez with 28%, and right-wing candidate Federico “Fico” Gutierrez with 23%.
Petro and Hernandez are actually anticipated to stand every different right through a 2nd spherical of vote casting on June nineteenth.
Polls closed overdue on Sunday without a main stories of violence or unrest.
“We’ve one of the vital oldest democracies on this hemisphere. We’ve probably the most cast democracies and it turns into cast as a result of each 4 years we make an orderly transition,” outgoing president Ivan Duque mentioned on Sunday.
Duque’s personal approval ranking is recently at a low, together with his tenure marred via his management’s dealing with of police behavior, inequality, and clashes between arranged felony teams.
In style discontent has positioned the left in sight of the presidency for the primary time within the nation’s historical past. Nonetheless, the initial effects constitute of a setback for the 62-year-old Petro — a former guerrilla fighter and mayor of Bogota — who were extensively considered a number one candidate.
If elected subsequent month, Petro would grow to be Colombia’s first leftist chief; his working mate Francia Marquez would additionally grow to be the primary Afro-Colombian to carry govt powers. Petro has proposed an intensive overhaul of the rustic’s financial system to fight one of the vital best inequality charges on the planet.
In the meantime Hernandez, 77, has appealed to centrist citizens with a novel social-media marketing campaign. The self-proclaimed “King of TikTok” declined to take part in different televised debates and gave few interviews to overseas shops — even supposing he did seem on CNN, dressed in his pajamas, pronouncing that he used to be a “guy of the folks.”
