Colombians were called to vote on Sunday March 13 to designate one of the candidates of the three coalitions who were running in the primaries for the presidential election on May 29 next.
The Colombians therefore had to choose between The Historic Pact, which brings together the left-wing parties, the Team for Colombia, marked on the right, and the Center of Hope, classified as centrist.
The historic pact received nearly 50% of the votes cast, with 5.8 million voters.
The right Team for Colombia, 4.1 million.
The Center of Hope 2.2 million.
They also had to vote to renew the members of the Senate and the lower house.
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Gustavo Petro, a former M19 guerrilla demobilized in the early 1990s, emerged as the big winner.
He received 80% of the votes in the historic Pact primary, which confirms the polls that give him the winner for the presidential election.
A surprise: in second position in the primary on the left is the Afro-Colombian, Francia Marquez.
This puts her in a good position to become a candidate for the vice-presidency alongside Gustavo Petro.
“
The historic pact has obtained the best results of progressivism in the history of the Republic of Colombia,
welcomed Gustavo Petro
.
We are on the verge of winning the presidency in the first round.
“For that, he would have to obtain more than 50% of the votes on May 29th.
Otherwise, a second round will be organized on June 19.
The rehabilitated left
This is the first time that a left-wing candidate has had a chance of gaining access to the Casa de Narino, the Colombian presidential residence.
Since the 1960s and the creation of the Farc guerrillas, calling oneself left-wing in Colombia has always aroused the suspicion of being close to the guerrillas which have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and kidnappings in the country.
But since the peace agreements signed between the Farc and the government of Juan Manuel Santos, Nobel Peace Prize winner, in 2016, this suspicion has disappeared.
A vast social movement provoked sometimes very violent demonstrations in 2019 and then in 2021 with the tacit approval of a large majority of the population.
In question: President Duque, heir to President Alvaro Uribe.
His presidency was felt to be a real disaster to such an extent that the former president's party, the Democratic Center, will not present a presidential candidate.
The political and sociological landscape was upset to the point that the victory of Gustavo Petro became possible.
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He will be opposed to the two other winners of the primaries: Federico Gutiérrez ranked in the center right and who received the support of Alvaro Uribe.
And center-ranked Sergio Fajardo.
Two other candidates will run for president: ex-hostage Ingrid Betancourt and Rodolfo Hernandez.
Federico Gutierrez has already called for blocking Gustavo Petro, accused of being a "
Castro-Chavista
".
The results of the elections in the Senate and the lower house confirm this surge of the left and the collapse of the Democratic Center of Alvaro Uribe which goes from the first party in the Senate to fifth after the ballot on Sunday.
In the Chamber of Deputies, he is only fourth.
Gustavo Petro's historic pact won 17 seats out of 102 in the Senate ahead of all the other parties.
In the lower house, it obtained second place with 25 seats, behind the Liberal Party with 32 deputies.