The candidate for the presidency of Colombia, Rodolfo Hernández, in full campaign in Ibagué.rrss
Rodolfo Hernández's campaign for the presidency of Colombia has begun to make noise a week before the first round.
It sounds like motorcycle and truck whistles, like noisy caravans in some regions of Colombia and is also expressed in the latest polls, where he appears third in voting intentions, behind Federico Gutiérrez, the right-wing coalition candidate supported by Álvaro Uribe.
Gustavo Petro is still in the lead, but Hernández is the candidate who has risen the most in recent weeks.
In the most recent, from the National Consulting Center (CNC), he appears third with 21.9% of voting intentions, very close to Gutiérrez (23.9%).
Petro follows as pointer with 41%.
Welcome to the rodolfista caravan.
Participate by car, truck, tractor, motorcycle, horse, donkey or on foot
, says the Facebook invitation from the “rodolfistas” from Neiva, in the south of the country.
In the middle of an atmosphere of vuvuzela, similar to when the soccer team wins, a boy tries to speak, but nobody listens.
His shirt, with Hernández's face in the center, speaks for him: "I support the old man."
There are no big speeches on the candidate's side either, his message is simple: “end corruption”, or “we are governed by thieves”.
His form of expression are memes and social networks.
The former mayor of Bucaramanga, 76, is known as the old man of TikTok.
Precisely with a meme, Hernández's Twitter account has simplified the debate generated by the latest survey analysis, which shows the stagnation of Federico Gutiérrez.
“Calm down, doctor Federico,” says Hernández.
Under his words, a montage by Gutiérrez appears that alludes to a famous phrase from the telenovela
Betty, la Fea
, one of the most watched in the country's history: "The engineer is breathing down my neck, Marce."
Hernández has established himself as the third option in the face of the debacle of the centrist candidate, Sergio Fajardo.
The engineer, who is a well-thought-out product for the style of indignation reproduced by social networks, promotes himself as the possible surprise to break the Gutiérrez and Petro circle.
If the polls are met, a second round will be held on June 19.
Until now it was expected to be a Petro-Fico battle, but the former mayor of Bucaramanga is already waving the flag of a possible comeback that will put him ahead of the right-wing candidate.
This Thursday he arrived at the Neiva airport, wearing a hat and scarves from the region, but mixed with his traditional Lacoste shirt and a microphone attached to his face, in the middle of a path of honor and vuvuzelas.
And so it will also do in Cartagena and Barranquilla.
In a country where 80% of Colombians consider corruption to be the biggest problem, it is not surprising that there are citizens who unite around what they call “la furia rodolfista”, which is like saying the citizen's fury against the corrupt.
With his unbuttoned and simple speech, the engineer embodies that rage.
His proposal is to make "major budget cuts", suspend the use of presidential planes and helicopters or donate all the money he receives as president's salary.
Recently, he announced the "decrees" of him in case he wins at the polls.
Among them, it includes eliminating embassies and presidential councils such as the equality of women, in a country where there are femicides every day.
He also says that he would take away congressmen's vehicles and force lower salaries for advisers to legislative units.
The engineer, before embarking on the presidential adventure, had some misogynistic and xenophobic outings about Venezuelan women.
And in 2016 he said that he "was a follower of a great German thinker called Adolf Hitler", although he recently assured that he had had a slip.
Hernández is a wealthy businessman from Santander, in eastern Colombia.
"I don't need money because I've already worked on it," said the builder, owner of buildings in Bucaramanga and that he lives in the
penthouse
of one of them, in the most exclusive neighborhood in the city.
He is the son of a tailor and a woman who ran a tobacco company inherited from the family.
He has been, like so many Colombians, a victim of violence.
In 1994, the former FARC guerrilla kidnapped his father and he paid for his ransom;
and in 2004, the ELN kidnapped his daughter Juliana.
She has been missing ever since and that is a pain that has surfaced during the campaign.
A surprise win in 2015
As now, during his campaign for mayor of Bucaramanga, Hernández began with very little support in the polls and ended up positioning himself in recent days, so much so that he won a victory that he himself did not expect.
In fact, on the same day as the election results he was on his way to New York for medical tests.
Hernández was mayor in 2015 and his administration was also punctuated by an investigation into alleged irregularities in hiring the garbage service through the Vitalogic company, in which his son served as a lobbyist and charged a commission of $180,000. .
But what he is always remembered for is the slap in the face he gave an opposition councillor.
The aggression earned him a suspension from the Mayor's Office for several months.
His brash and outspoken character is something his voters celebrate.
It is not yet clear how many will materialize at the polls, but for now they continue to make more and more noise.
In addition to whistles, his own ranchero corrido also sounds in his acts: "We have to take away the checkbook from the corrupt and hand in hand we are going to end this."
The "rodolfonetas", as they call those who come to their campaign caravans in trucks, maintain their progress 10 days after the first round.
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