From the left, the candidates Gustavo Petro, Federico Fico Gutiérrez, Sergio Fajardo and Rodolfo Hernández.SR.
GARCIA
To change means to get rid of something to put something else in its place.
A decision that is usually not easy to make.
Colombia is at that moment.
The polls will test this Sunday if the desire for change that a large part of society shows is enough to give an unprecedented political turn in a country that has been screwed by conservative governments throughout its modern history.
The left has never ruled the nation and has never been so close to doing so until now.
The first round of the presidential elections will gauge the momentum of the weariness that has been threatening the Colombian
status quo
for years and that had its greatest expression in the massive protests that last year brought thousands of people to the streets throughout the country.
The surveys have already shown that those who seek a new political horizon are more, but that does not necessarily imply that the change will take place.
Gustavo Petro, leader of the left, has maintained an enormous advantage over the rest of the candidates throughout the campaign, but the average 40% in voting intentions given by the polls would be insufficient for a victory in the first round.
Petro has been the most effective in championing social discontent.
“I am the change that Colombia needs”, he usually says.
But he has not been the only one.
In recent weeks, a new protagonist threatens to fight that flag.
Rodolfo Hernández, the most indefinable candidate of all, began in the final stretch of the campaign to add support until he won the real possibility this Sunday of achieving a position in the second round.
Between them they account for almost 60% of the votes, according to the latest polls, and no one doubts that either of them would mark a turning point in the country's political tradition.
If the 76-year-old millionaire businessman from Bucaramanga manages to come second, Petro would have to change its strategy.
It would no longer be him against the
establishment
, a speech in which he feels comfortable and which, so far, has given him good results.
Federico
Fico
Gutiérrez, the right-wing candidate, fights to prevent the
sorpasso
of Hernandez.
His role during the campaign has not been easy.
Gutiérrez arrived as a signature candidate in the presidential race.
He played the trick of being an independent politician, away from the big parties, but he never managed to shake off the shadow of Uribismo.
As soon as he won the primaries of the right-wing coalition, last March, the Democratic Center of former President Álvaro Uribe withdrew his candidate and closed ranks with him.
Fico never names the man who has handled power in Colombia in the last two decades, who is experiencing his lowest hours of popularity and who, for the first time since the beginning of the century, has disappeared from the spotlight during the campaign, aware that his presence subtracts more than adds.
Gutiérrez also tries to distance himself from the current president, Iván Duque,
who reaches the end of his term with a minimal approval rating.
“I am me”, he usually says angrily when they accuse him of continuing.
But he also never rides the wave of change that the majority seems to demand: “What is good, we will keep;
what's wrong, we'll make it better."
Fico also adds the support of the two great traditional parties, the Conservative and the Liberal, but not even with all the traditional political power behind it has it ever managed to exceed 25% in voting intentions in the polls.
If he reaches the second round to face Petro, Gutiérrez aspires to add to all the anti-petrism generated by the left-wing candidate.
The figure of the leader of the Historical Pact (the coalition led by Petro) has been a mirror of the polarization that marks the country.
Colombia lives at two speeds.
In 2021, considered by economists to be the year of post-pandemic recovery, the economy grew by more than 10%, but poverty remained around 40%.
Thus, while some see in Petro a leader capable of closing the enormous inequality gaps,
The electoral battle seems to be to three, after the candidate of the center, Sergio Fajardo, was dismounted from the bets by never being able to take off in the polls.
The former mayor of Medellín also tried, without success, to present himself as a break with the country's political inertia.
From the political center, the idea of a quiet change did not work.
The disagreements within the coalition ended up devouring any attempt to reach voters with clear proposals and Fajardo barely adds 6-7% in voting intentions in the polls.
Petro's victory this Sunday is taken for granted, but the unknown is who will face him for the second round, which takes place on June 19.
Not only that, the distance that he takes from the second will also be a thermometer to calibrate the campaign that will reopen this Monday.
Petro fears Rodolfo more than Fico.
If the leader of the right succeeds, Rodolfo's votes in this first round could be divided in the second.
But if Hernández is the one who passes, the Historic Pact campaign assumes that the entire
fiquista
vote would go with the eccentric former mayor of Bucaramanga, whom many already call the Colombian Trump.
The leader of the left is an old acquaintance of national politics, he was mayor of Bogotá and has been in this for half his life.
He is not considered part of the
establishment
, but the role of
outsider
Hernandez has won the electoral battle.
This last week, in which polls have been prohibited, the candidate, who likes to be called an engineer, has played his own campaign without crossing paths with the rest.
Driven by his political strategists on social media, he refused to participate in the last three debates and dedicated himself to giving rallies on Facebook or Instagram and visiting popular music radio stations.
Ridden to the wave of growth that the latest polls gave him, he has sought to maintain momentum without confronting his proposals with the other candidates.
Hernandez is an unknown.
He has made the flag of the fight against corruption, while launching populist proposals through networks.
This week he promised to work from the Government so that all Colombians know the sea at least once in his life.
Whether he has been successful or not will be seen this Sunday when the polls open.
Colombia votes after the most tense campaign in memory in the country.
The crossed accusations of a possible electoral fraud, the doubts about the recount system and the discredit of the electoral institutions have flown over national politics in recent months.
Change is never easy.
Colombians decide this Sunday if they take the first step to do so.
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