Last Sunday (29/05/2022), voters in Colombia gave, in the first round of elections, the first two seats to Petro and Rodolfo Hernandez, a former mayor and wealthy businessman, who ran in the elections with a populist agenda against corruption. The image of the outsider with the inflammatory rhetoric and the monothematic approach to politics, led to him being described as the Colombian “Donald Trump”.
The result, that is, the vote in favor of a leftist who made a career attacking the conservative political class and a relatively unknown one without party support, was the disapproval of the right-wing establishment that has ruled the country for many decades. At the same time, however, he reshaped political arithmetic on behalf of Peter. In this way he can now run his own candidacy as the appropriate change the country needs, while warning that Hernandez is a dangerous choice for the people of Colombia.
Now a victory for Petros looks like a difficult task. Immediately after the confrontation, Gutierrez, the former mayor of Medellin, the country’s second largest city, expressed his preference for Hernandez, saying his goal was to secure democracy.
In practice, however, the reason is that if the first left-wing candidate for the presidency of Colombia is elected, his attempt for economic change ‘could jeopardize the interests of the traditional political class. The right in Colombia has reached a very extreme catastrophic point. She prefers a government that offers her nothing, as long as it is not that of the left-wing candidate Petros.
Until a few days ago, the political narrative in Colombia was simple: for many generations, few wealthy families dominated the political scene, and more recently we had the prevalence of a hard-core conservatism known as Urbism, named after the country’s first President. Alvaro Uribe. But the electorate’s anger over the misery, inequality and insecurity that intensified during the pandemic, along with the growing acceptance of the Left after the 2016 peace process with the largest guerrilla organization, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) ), changed this dynamic.
In the run-up to the May 29 election, voters responded to Peter’s proposals: a broad expansion of social programs, a halt to new oil drilling in an oil-dependent country, and an emphasis on social justice.
The story was this: Left now against Right, change against continuity, elite against the rest of the country. However, the sudden rise of Hernandez reflects a rejection of both the conservative elite and Peter. And it reveals how the political narrative was not convincing enough.
