BOGOTÀ. Led by a former guerrilla senator, the left in Colombia is set to win the first round of the presidential elections, driven to success by the erosion of the right in power and by the social and economic crisis. Gustavo Petro, 62, in his third attempt to win the presidency, is largely in the lead in voting intentions, even though he probably won’t have enough room to avoid the June 19 ballot.
Federico Gutièrrez (47 years old) and Rodolfo Hernàndez (77 years old), the first candidate of the right-wing coalition and linked to the party of the hearing president, the conservative and unpopular Ivan Duque; the second a millionaire outsider, they will be his likely rivals in the second round. If the predictions are confirmed, the left will achieve its best electoral result in a century, in a country of 50 million inhabitants, historically ruled by conservative elites or right-wing liberals and plagued by drug trafficking and increasing violence, despite the 2016 peace agreement with the dissolved Farc guerrillas.
Petro – who laid down his arms in 1990 after the demobilization of M-19, the nationalist rebel group of which he was a member for 12 years – embodies the rupture: “There are really two options: either to keep things as they are. or change ». It promises a historic turning point, an economy unmarked from oil and an environmental and progressive agenda on social issues: it wants to put an end to new oil exploration by focusing instead on the climate and providing a series of new social protection programs, including health care and the universal basic income.