Colombia voted against continuity and the establishment on Sunday. The first round of the presidential elections, with a turnout of 54%, went to the left Gustavo Petro (40.8% of the vote). His victory came as less of a surprise than the emergence of populist candidate Rodolfo Hernández, who made it into the second round on June 19 with 28% and absorbing votes from the right.
The two candidates, who are ideologically at the opposite end of the spectrum, have confirmed the desire for change of a large part of the electorate. The deep malaise that Colombian society is experiencing feeds a desire that has been worsened in recent years by the impact of a severe pandemic that has impoverished an already economically weak country and a government unable to deal with social discontent to overcome, has deepened.
In this context, the victory of two candidates who present themselves as alien to the system, beyond the fallacy of such a position, testifies to the failure of an elitist and short-sighted power structure in the face of the changes that have taken place in Colombia. Uribismo’s engagement with Fico Gutiérrez (23.9%) has failed miserably, completing a historic cycle, especially after being explicitly backed by both the Conservative Party and Liberals to block Petro’s path. At the same time, the center has collapsed with Sergio Fajardo (4.2%), whose moderate discourse has been buried by the turbulence of polarization.
A stage has been closed and the future is still uncertain. In that sense, the push by Hernández, 77, a populist who is partly following in Donald Trump’s footsteps, raises all sorts of questions. In July, he will sit on the bench as Bucaramanga mayor in a dark contract case, and his credit includes a long list of idiots (including a declaration of admiration for Hitler, which he later corrected) and lacerating words against women and men migrants . This history did not stop his surprising electoral success. Also playing in their favor is the rebalancing of forces that the second round brings. Fico himself has already asked for a vote for him as a sign of Uribismo’s high ability to mutate to remain at the core of power, which has greatly increased his expectations of winning the presidency.
This turn of events openly defies Petro, whose performance on election night was hardly triumphant. To fight his electoral cap (a leftist has never won the presidency in Colombia’s recent history) he must now add the entry into the game of a candidate blown away by the winds of populism and a resource-rich right wing. These are obstacles that he can only overcome if, in addition to the support in the middle less prone to uribismo, he shows himself able to leave his natural fishing grounds and those who did not vote for him from the of the change proposed to him is really an improvement for all citizens.
There are still three weeks left for the second round. It is a short time, but Colombian politics lives in constant acceleration. On this Sunday, uneasiness and the desire for real change won out. Both are legitimate factors that often feed populism and radicalization: neither condition favors the prosperity of a country with deep wounds.