Daniel Quintero Calle, the independent who beat Uribismo in Medellín

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(CNN Spanish) - In Medellín, the second most important city in Colombia, and the strongest bastion of Uribism in this country, the political current of former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez was defeated by a candidate who defined himself as independent and without machinery, and He was elected as the new mayor of Medellin with the highest vote in years.

"Hope defeated fear," said the elected mayor after learning the results.

Daniel Quintero Calle was born in Medellín in 1980. At 39, he won the elections to the mayor of Medellín with just over 303,000 votes, achieving 38.5% of the vote on his nearest container, Alfredo Ramos, who obtained about 235,000 votes, 29.8% of the vote. Ramos was a candidate for the Democratic Center, the party led by former president and senator Uribe, with whom President Iván Duque was also elected in 2018.

Hope defeated fear

- Daniel Quintero Calle (@QuinteroCalle) October 27, 2019

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The victory of Quintero Calle, which was launched by a signature-driven movement, surprised many as it won against all odds. Before the elections several polls put him as second in the intention to vote. Invamer, for example, gave him 25% compared to 36% that Ramos would have. Another, that of the pollster Guarumo, gave Ramos a 46% vote intention, and 28.2% Quintero Calle. But at the polls there was a different result: the independent candidate took 8.6 points ahead, almost 70,000 more votes, which the polls gave as a winner.

"Yes, we have overcome fear with hope," Quintero Calle said in his victory speech in Medellin this Sunday. “To cynicism (we beat him) with hard work, with the work of a whole team that moved on the street without parties, without political bosses. A different policy. "

For the Medellin City Hall, the vote for the Democratic Center party fell from 34.41% in 2015 to 29.88% in 2019. In addition, throughout the country, this party went from having 7.81% in 2015 to 5, 52% in 2019.

In Antioquia, the results for the Democratic Center in the Interior were also adverse. The uribismo candidate, Andrés Guerra, was defeated at the polls with 28.70% of the votes, compared to the winner, Anibal Gaviria, who obtained 36% of the votes, a difference of 170,000 votes.

In the 2018 presidential elections the candidate of the Democratic Center, Iván Duque, obtained 53.1% of the votes in Antioquia, in the first round and in the second he reached 72.53% of the votes.

Former President Álvaro Uribe acknowledged this Sunday that his party lost the elections.

We lost, I recognize defeat with humility. The fight for democracy has no end.

- Álvaro Uribe Vélez (@AlvaroUribeVel) October 27, 2019

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Does not respond to attacks

Daniel Quintero Calle grew up in the popular neighborhoods of Medellín and won thanks to the work "of a whole team that moved on the street without parties, without political leaders," he said in Caracol Radio.

He was a child prodigy: he graduated from school at age 14 and began studying at the university, but with the death of his mother he retired from studying and began to work selling desserts, being a messenger and other trades. At 16 he tried again to study at the university, but because of the high tuition costs he could not study either. At 17 he won a scholarship and was able to enter the University of Antioquia where he studied Electronic Engineering, says his website.

In his studies he has a specialization in Finance at the Universidad de los Andes, in Bogotá; a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from Boston University, USA, and a course for global leaders in Public Finance Administration at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, according to his profile.

During his campaign, the candidate was the subject of what he called a dirty campaign, in which he was linked, in principle by former president Álvaro Uribe as "Petro's agent in Medellin" and invited to vote for his candidate Alfredo Ramos.

Petro's agent in Medellín, Vice Minister of Santos, poses as an independent candidate. Random Medellin Let's avoid that, let's vote for Alfredo Ramos to continue the vision of Mayor Federico Gutiérrez pic.twitter.com/vL7lJZGb2v

- Álvaro Uribe Vélez (@AlvaroUribeVel) September 8, 2019

Later, a few days after the elections, posters were installed that linked him to the leader of the left Gustavo Petro, who along with Uribe have polarized Colombia under the left or right dichotomy. The candidate was unmarked from Petro.

I ask citizens to download the fraudulent parades that were installed today to deceive citizens, and help us identify the people, businesses and officials behind these actions. pic.twitter.com/v6Ygy78CCy

- Daniel Quintero Calle (@QuinteroCalle) October 20, 2019

And Petro said it was a “rot of the extreme right of Medellin” to link his name with that of Quintero and clarified that his candidate in that city was Jairo Herrán.

Look at the power of the extreme right of Medellin.

They have spent a fortune to make me believe that my candidate in Medellín is Daniel Quintero hoping that the conservative majority of that city will deny him the vote.

Colombia Humana has Herrán as candidate for mayor pic.twitter.com/Bx7kWMqrTv

- Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) October 20, 2019

In September, when he denounced the dirty campaign against him, the candidate blocked Uribe and Petro on Twitter “to prevent contamination of the fight in Medellín with the national dispute,” he told Caracol Radio.

'You have to join Medellín'

That independence that Quintero Calle claims was with which, according to him, he won over Uribism: "Making a respectful campaign" and "without personal attacks."

"They asked me 'why don't you respond to the attacks?': Because we were going to be the mayors of Medellín and whoever wants to govern Medellín should think about joining it and not dividing it," he said Sunday.

The elected mayor of Medellín got rid of the main political leaders of both Medellin and the country and said that one of his strategies was not to polarize.

“I personally respect you all, Uribe Petro, Duque, Fajardo, everyone, but I was neither Uribe's, nor Fajardo's, nor Petro's, nor Duque's. This was an independent campaign, ”he told Caracol Radio.

"We have shown that you can make a policy without personalism, without personal attacks, a respectful policy and that the people of Medellin prefer that policy of respect," he said in his speech this Sunday.

Now he says he will rule for everyone in his city. Among his proposals are to make Medellín the capital of the fourth industrial revolution, an eco-city that breathes clean air and, for animalists, to create “a city that respects animals and tells bullfighting never again "

But above all, its objective is to unite the capital of Antioquia, "heal the wounds left by polarization and bring hope to those who have been subjected to fear."

And that fear referred to by Quintero Calle, may be due to the traces left by violence in this city, which once had such a bad reputation that some locals nicknamed it "Metrallo". Although it was the hometown of the infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar and a crime focus in the 1990s and early 2000s, plagued by thousands of murders, crime rates in Medellín have declined, and now, according to the elected mayor "There is only one Medellin" that he will govern and unite.

Quintero Calle will be mayor of Medellín between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2023.

Daniel Quintero CalleEleccionesMedellínUribismo