Petro and Hernández go to the second presidential round 0:47
(CNN Spanish) ––
The contest for the presidency in Colombia is not over yet: the candidates Gustavo Petro and Rodolfo Hernández will face each other in the second electoral round, after accumulating 40.34% and 28.17%, respectively, of votes issued on the day of May 29.
But when will those second-round presidential elections take place, and how are they different?
This is all you need to know.
Gustavo Petro and Rodolfo Hernández, to the second round in Colombia
When will the second round of the presidential elections be?
The National Registry of Colombia established that the second presidential round will be held on June 19, that is, exactly three weeks after the first election day.
Presidential Elections 2022 in Colombia, live: voting and results
Why is a second round needed in Colombia?
The second presidential round is held in Colombia when none of the candidates obtains half plus one of all the votes cast.
Since voting is not compulsory in Colombia, the levels of participation tend to change.
On this occasion, there were 39,002,239 eligible voters, of which more than 21.3 million, a figure close to 54.73%, turned out to vote.
In other words, to avoid a second round, one of the candidates had to get more than 10.6 million votes on May 29.
The number that everyone looks at in Colombia: how many votes are needed to win in the first round of the presidential elections?
That didn't happen.
Petro, the candidate with the most votes in the first round, reached just over 8.5 million votes, equivalent to 40.34%.
Therefore, he will have to face the engineer Rodolfo Hernández, who obtained more than 5.94 million votes, or 20.17%, and came in second place.
Who participates in the second round?
Only the two candidates who obtained the highest number of votes participate in the second round.
Which means that the ticket will include only Petro and Hernández, along with their vice-presidential formulas.
These will be the names that you will find on the electoral card, below their images:
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Rodolfo Hernández and Marelen Castillo, from the
Gustavo Petro League of Anticorruption Leaders, and Francia Márquez Mina, from the Historical Pact.
There will also be the option to vote blank.
The candidates who will go to the second round
Rodolfo Hernández, 77, obtained about 28% of the votes, according to the report of 96% of the tables.
He participated in few debates and is considered an anti-establishment political figure.
Hernández aspires to the presidency for the League of Governors Anti-Corruption movement.
Until the last weeks of the campaign, Rodolfo Hernández was behind Fico Gutiérrez in the polls, but the latest polls showed that he skyrocketed in voting intentions and could reach the second round, as happened.
This is Rodolfo Hernández, the Colombian 'Donald Trump' who wants to be president
Hernández (Piedecuesta, Santander, 1945) is a businessman from the Santander region, in northeastern Colombia.
He worked as a construction businessman, with which he amassed his fortune, and after a controversial but popular stint as mayor of Bucaramanga —a city of some 500,000 inhabitants in northeastern Colombia—, he decided to jump into the national arena as presidential candidate with a platform based on the fight against corruption.
Who is Gustavo Petro, the leftist candidate who is trying for the third time to reach the presidency of Colombia
For his part, Gustavo Petro (Ciénaga de Oro, Córdoba, 1960) has the challenge of leaving behind his opponents' image of being a leader of recalcitrant ideas and attitudes, and trying to unite the progressive sectors to govern the country.
In his third attempt to reach the most important position in Colombia, Gustavo Petro carries the burden of having been a member of a guerrilla group that led to one of the worst tragedies in the country's history, the seizure of the Palace of Justice (despite of not having participated directly), but at the same time of being one of the most important political leaders in the recent history of the Latin American nation.
Petro defines himself as a "progressive" leftist leader in a highly traditional and right-wing country.
He proposes making the economy "revolve around life", betting on natural wealth and environmental protection, as well as "deepen democracy", and make an economic structure "based on production and not on extraction" ,
How to vote in the second round in Colombia?
The only valid document to exercise the vote in the elections is the yellow citizenship card with holograms in the country and abroad, according to the Registrar's Office.
The entity in charge also specifies that voting with a password or any other document is not allowed.
Presidential elections in Colombia in 2022: where to vote and how to consult the polling station and polling station
The organization also indicates that you can only vote in the place where your ID is registered, which can be consulted on the Infovotantes microsite website of the Colombian Registrar.
Elections ColombiaGustavo PetroRodolfo Hernández
