There are four months left for the first round of Colombia's presidential elections and voters still do not know which names will be on the ballot.
The only certainty at this point is that no candidate can win alone in such a fractured scenario.
Coalitions are imposed on any name and party, which forces politicians with enormous differences to understand each other in order to measure themselves in a referendum to be held in March.
Only then will the candidates who will reach the polls be defined.
Uribismo comes to the race at its worst moment in two decades and the idea of a change prevails among voters, accustomed to bringing right-wing politicians to the Casa de Nariño. What is the change, and if it finally occurs, is the great unknown of this electoral event. The left-wing candidate, Gustavo Petro, stands as the true breaking point that the country needs, but from the center they refute that idea. Leaders such as Sergio Fajardo, Ingrid Betancourt or Juan Manuel Galán, all of them pre-candidates of the Centro Esperanza Coalition, present themselves as the only ones capable of changing the course of Colombia against what they consider two extremes supported by electoral machines, to the right and to the left.
Even from the right they look for that change of face. Uribismo's candidate, Óscar Iván Zuluaga, languishes against the coalition of mayors, in which Federico Gutiérrez is, first in the polls to win in that consultation in which Zuluaga finds no fit. Gutiérrez, who proclaims himself independent, is considered by many to be Álvaro Uribe's shadow candidate, already aware that his pull does not fill the polls.
The first major presidential debate between the main candidates leading the polls will be held this Thursday at 7:30 in Bogotá, organized by Prisa Media.
EL PAÍS will broadcast it live.
Citizens will attend the discussion between three models, the left, center and right.
The leader of the left Gustavo Petro is at the head of all the polls and seems the rival to beat.
His victory in his coalition is taken for granted.
In the other two, no name stands out clearly, everything is yet to be decided.
This face-to-face will help clear the way.
Petro, a tailored coalition
Petro has been playing only the polls for months. The consultation of the Historical Pact, which he leads, has nothing to do with the others. It is tailor-made for Petro and no surprise is expected that could separate him from the candidacy for the presidency. That gives him an advantage that some analysts consider inflated. In the midst of a sea of names that have yet to win the leadership of their political options, Petro looks from above in the polls with a huge difference.
In the last Invamer survey in November, which asked about the intention to vote, Petro obtained 42%, followed by Sergio Fajardo with 19%.
However, once the rest of the coalitions are defined, the percentage that today is dispersed among the different similar candidates will be added, which will predictably equalize the contest.
In any case, and as this newspaper has verified in numerous electoral interviews, the left-wing leader has almost assured his ticket to a second round and is the rival to beat by all.
Petro already reached the second round in 2018, where he faced the current president, appointed by Uribismo, Iván Duque. So the one who was mayor of Bogotá obtained eight million votes, an endorsement that he has recalled on numerous occasions in this pre-campaign, without taking into account that in a second round many voters choose what they consider less bad, not necessarily their first preference.
Colombia is a country where the left has never governed.
Petro generates enormous fear in a broad sector that goes beyond the right, especially in the economic field.
It doesn't always go down well with the most progressive sectors either, and it adds loud clashes with the feminist movement, which in recent months has been moving away from it.
For many, however, his arrival at the Casa de Nariño would mean a real change after decades of conservatism.
The mystery of the center
The irruption this week of Ingrid Betancourt as a candidate, 20 years after she was kidnapped when she aspired to preside over the country for the first time, has had enormous repercussions abroad, but in Colombia her arrival has not been so famous. The main television channels in the world broadcast the press conference in which he made the announcement. No contender comes even close to the impact of the Betancourt outside of Colombia, where it is a symbol of the violence that the country suffered for half a century. The fact is that it is much more popular inside than outside, which generates suspicion in some sectors of the country.
Around her, people who do not like her have built about her the image of an intruder, a foreigner who wants to rule in a strange country, like those foreign kings who sat on thrones in unknown lands.
Perhaps that is her main
handicap
as a candidate.
In any case, and although she does not want to mention the matter, many believe that her proposal has more to do with seeking an alliance with one of the strong candidates to go as a
ticket
to the first round.
That is, Sergio Fajardo's number two, at the head of the Center's polls.
Betancourt still does not appear, there has not been time to measure her entrance.
Colombian politicians Juan Fernando Cristo and Sergio Fajardo attend a press conference in which Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt makes her candidacy official this week to lead the Coalition of Hope, in Bogotá.Carlos Ortega (EFE)
According to Invamer, Fajardo leads with 43% support, eleven points more than Juan Manuel Galán, the son of the candidate assassinated in 1989 who has just recovered the name of his party. Far away, with 9%, is an intellectual who generated much expectation in academic and bourgeois circles in Bogotá: Alejandro Gaviria. The former rector of the Universidad de los Andes projects an image of a man of integrity away from political concerns. Its launch had a great local repercussion. His strength is also his biggest problem, being someone far from the political battle, where public servants make themselves known. Gaviria is little known in the rest of Colombia, outside the Bogota bubble.
In the absence of verifying the citizens' assessment of Betancourt, Fajardo heads to the final stretch of the consultation with a considerable advantage.
One of his obsessions is drawing diagrams.
Recently, during a Bogotá-Medellín flight, I outlined one in a notebook with a word in capital letters in the center: LEADERSHIP.
For now, the tactic works for him.
The right seeks to survive
Never before has conservatism been so close to losing power. The Colombian right, in its many forms, has always ruled in Colombia. President Álvaro Uribe governed in 2002 and, from that moment, all the following presidents were people he trusted. However, his influence is at an all time low. The low popularity of the current president, Iván Duque, makes it difficult for Uribismo to continue putting candidates who win at the polls. Moreover, the profile of some of the politicians who aspired to occupy Uribe's patronage has moderated.
Within the right, the coalition of mayors, a union of different regional leaders, leads the polls.
There is Fico Gutiérrez, former mayor of Medellín.
Many consider him an undercover uribista, although he declares himself independent.
In the Invamer survey, he is the first option, with 26.4%, practically tied with Alejandro Char (26.1).
They are followed closely by Enrique Peñalosa (22.7).
Alejandro Char, in his time as mayor of Barranquilla, in 2019. Charlie Cordero
Char is a cacique from Barranquilla, an unknown because he does not participate in debates or speak with the media. All his campaign is done through social networks. The controversy has accompanied him due to the multiple investigations that have taken place around him for cases of corruption. The next in question is Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of Bogotá, recognized for starting Transmilenio, the massive system of articulated buses in the Colombian capital, a kind of open-air subway.
One of the three, no matter how low his popularity is right now, could be president of Colombia, especially if in a second round he faced Petro, the favorite right now, but at the same time who can mobilize the most against him in the center and to the country's conservatives.
Anyone can win right now, but not alone.
Coming to power, now more than ever, will be a matter of alliances.
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