Election in Colombia: Is hopeful Petro happy too soon?

Created: 06/18/2022, 1:39 p.m

By: Kim Hornickel, Sandra Kathe, Lucas Maier

Dealing with drug trafficking is one of the central issues in the presidential elections in Colombia.

Will there be an export to Europe?

• Presidential election:

  A new head of state will be elected in Colombia on Sunday (June 19).

• Duel on Sunday:

  After the first ballot on May 29, the two best-placed candidates will face off in the run-off election: the left-wing candidate Gustavo Petro was 40 percent ahead of the right-wing populist Rudolfo Hernández in May.

• Outcome uncertain:

  In the polls, it seems as if a head-to-head race is imminent between the two candidates.

+++ 1:35 p.m .:

Although an election victory for the left-wing presidential candidate Gustavo Petro was long considered unlikely, the former guerrilla rebel is optimistic about his upcoming victory in the presidential election after his superior result in the first round of the election.

On Friday (June 17), Petro met with people from the Colombian economy, politics and the social sector to set an example for the possible political direction of the next four years.

With the meeting, Petro wants to signal that he plans to bring his divided country closer together again.

This is reported by the Colombian newspaper El Espectador.

It is about showing people with different positions that there is often little that separates them and that one can create a common unity out of diversity.

The future of Colombia is pluralistic, colorful and shaped by a fresh climate.

According to reports, Petro wants to start planning the government's agenda with the next meeting on Tuesday – provided that he actually wins the forthcoming runoff election on Sunday.

In the first round of the presidential elections in Colombia, left-wing candidate Gustavo Petro celebrated a landslide victory ahead of his fellow campaigners.

© Yuri Cortez/AFP

Master plans in the run-up to the Colombian elections: Both candidates are planning cuts in drug policy

Update from Saturday, June 18, 9:55 a.m .:

Not only the presidential candidate Rodolfo Hernández advertises in the election campaign in Colombia with a "master plan" to end drug trafficking.

In addition to Hernández, the former founding member of the left-wing political guerrilla "M-19", Gustavo Petro, is up for election, as vice writes.

“The drug war is fought with capitalism.

It's not with lead or with more violence," said the left-wing politician.

An export of cannabis to the US and Europe should bring an end to the cocaine trade, if the ex-guerrilla has his way.

In addition, the fields on which coca is currently growing will continue to be cultivated through the cultivation of cannabis.

Whoever gets more than 50 percent of the votes on Sunday (June 19) will become the new president of Colombia.

Should it be Gustavo Petro, it would be the country's first left-wing president, as vice reports.

Election campaign in Colombia: Gustavo Petro promises to export cannabis.

(Archive image) © Leonardo Munoz/dpa

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Election campaign in Colombia: free drugs for everyone in the fight against the cartels

Update, 7.45 p.m .:

The presidential candidate in Colombia Rodolfo Hernández has caused a stir with his proposal to hand out drugs to addicts.

With this, Hernández wants to end the violence associated with drug trafficking, as reported by the news portal vice.

“If we make drugs freely available to drug addicts, be it intravenously, orally, then the demand is gone.

Nobody buys anymore," he said, according to the vice.

Hernández wants to end the power of the cartels.

"If they don't buy drugs because we give them to them, the sale is over and the drugs are over."

Drug trafficking is a key issue during the presidential election.

Colombia is the largest cocaine producer in the world.

Powerful drug dealers organize their sales out of the country.

The upcoming presidential election could also point the way for the drug market in Colombia.

On June 19, Colombians will vote again after none of the candidates could clear the 50 hurdle.

Colombia: Victory of the left-wing candidate team in the first ballot

First report from Friday, June 17, 5:20 p.m.:

Bogotá – Colombia elects Iván Duque’s successor and may experience political change.

Because Gustavo Petro, who was leading in the first ballot, is not only clearly to the left of the country's last governments, he would also be the first ex-guerrilla in office.

The result of the first ballot at the end of May, in which Petro got the most votes with around 40 percent, also showed that his chances of realizing the promise of "real change" are not bad at all.

28 percent voted for his opponent, right-wing populist Rodolfo Hernández.

The election polls are now pointing to a head-to-head race between two candidates who could hardly be more different, and both were considered surprise candidates in their own way.

Neither are newcomers to the political business: Petro, who studied economics after his assignment with the left-wing guerrilla rebel group M-19, has been a diplomat in Belgium and mayor of Bogotá in the course of his career, while the rich tree entrepreneur Hernández has been the mayor of the city for several years City of Bucaramanga in the north of the country.

A supporter at a campaign rally in the Colombian capital of Bogota with a placard depicting presidential candidate Gustavo Petro and vice-presidential candidate Francia Marquez.

© Photo by Juan Pablo Pino / AFP

Colombia elections on Sunday: who will be the new president?

The fact that things are getting tight again after the large lead in the first ballot on May 29 is mainly due to the election recommendation of the third-placed right-wing conservative presidential candidate Federico Gutiérrez, who called on the 24 percent of those eligible to vote who had voted for him, now Hernández to choose.

However, the younger generation in particular is loudly supporting Petro, also because of his running mate Francia Márquez, a 40-year-old black woman who became politically active as a civil rights and environmental activist.

As a candidate, Petro has promised to strengthen the state's influence on the economy and to distribute profits from resource extraction more fairly.

His election platform is directed against the country's traditional elite.

He also wants to fight poverty and campaign for more climate protection.

He promises a turning point for the country, which has been struggling with poverty, violence and drug cartels for many years.

Runoff election for president in Colombia: Petro against Hernández

Hernández, on the other hand, embodies Colombia's traditional elite like no other and flirts with the often obvious comparison with the ousted US President Donald Trump.

Like Trump, the 77-year-old multimillion-dollar contractor Hernández railed against an elite to which he himself belongs according to other criteria, and has already made a name for himself with a number of scandals.

In 2018, for example, he slapped a city councilman in his capacity as mayor for accusing Hernández's son of corruption.

A few years ago he made headlines by saying he admired the "German thinker Adolf Hitler" and then declared that he had confused the Nazi dictator with the physics genius Albert Einstein.

His most important topic: the fight against corruption in Colombia's ruling political and economic elite.

However, his exact plans for a presidency remain vague, and corruption proceedings are currently underway against him himself because as mayor he is said to have favored a company connected to one of his sons.

Hernández's ideas for his own political decisions range from the closure of Colombian embassies abroad to pay off student loans to the right for all Colombians to go to the sea at least once in their life.

As the first official act, he announced that he would resume relations with neighboring Venezuela, but at the same time he threatened to deport hundreds of thousands of migrants.

Colombia elects a new president: Left versus right-wing populist

As in many other countries around the world, the timing of the election in Colombia comes at a deeply divided country, with many people supporting both opponents as passionately as they oppose the other.

Petro's opponents warn that he would turn Colombia into a "socialist dictatorship like Venezuela." Many young people in particular despise Hernández for his political appearance and misogynist and sexist insults, which became a hallmark of his election campaign.

(kh/ska with AFP/dpa)