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Gustavo Petro brings the left to power for the first time in the history of Colombia

2022-06-20T03:52:50.245Z


The former guerrilla defeated the populist Rodolfo Hernández with 50.5% of the votes and three points of advantage


Colombia entered a new political era this Sunday.

The left will govern the country for the next four years for the first time in its history.

Gustavo Petro won the elections with 50.4% of the vote compared to 47.3% for the populist candidate Rodolfo Hernández.

The resounding victory of the Historical Pact confirms the desire for change of Colombians, who have turned the page on decades of conservative governments.

The three points of advantage drive away the ghost of fraud, always present, and put an end to the most tense campaign in memory in Colombia.

Petro overcame with an absolute majority the resistance generated by part of the citizens the mere fact of mentioning his name.

This was his battle against Rodolfo, but above all it was a fight about himself.

The antipetrismo is enormous in a country marked by the violence of decades of conflict.

Petro, a former M-19 guerrilla and champion of the left, embodies for many Colombians everything they have always wanted to keep away from power.

Those who prefer to vote for anyone other than him.

Those who have always been the majority.

Until this Sunday.

“From today Colombia changes.

Is another.

It is not a change to take revenge or to create more hatred, ”he said in his first speech as president-elect.

Up there on the stage, where he tried to see himself so many times without success, Petro made his first decision, with an enormous symbolic load.

He asked the Prosecutor's Office to "release all the young people" arrested during the protests and the social outbreak of 2021. The polls on Sunday reflected the weariness due to the deep inequalities in the country and the boredom towards the traditional ruling elite that have been reflected in the elections for years. streets.

A discontent that ignited the protest in 2019 and that last year paralyzed entire cities, leaving dozens of dead, most of them young, victims of police repression.

Petro has huge challenges ahead.

Not failing all those who hope that his arrival in power will bring about a real change in their lives.

But also to unite a broken and divided country.

His campaign promises include profound transformations that will require large majorities in Congress, which he does not count on from the outset.

The president-elect proposes changing the country's production model and starting an energy transition to reduce oil dependence.

He will also end hunger and reduce poverty, which today affects 39% of the 51 million Colombians.

This Sunday was a day of first times.

The country will have the first black female vice president in its history.

Francia Márquez, the Afro-Colombian environmentalist who had to leave her territory under death threats, will also be the Minister of Equality.

A victory hard won, even for Petro himself, who for a long time did not see clearly that she was his

number two

.

Márquez became the great phenomenon of the campaign and a catalyst for votes that few knew how to measure.

The Afro vote, that of women, that of the territories, that of those whom she called "nobodies" and who were reflected in this single mother, the face of all the violence in the country, and who today come from her hand to the top of the executive branch.

“We are going to reconcile this nation, we are going for peace in a determined way.

We are going for dignity and for social justice”, she said on Sunday night, becoming what a woman like her had never achieved in this country.

the sensible change

Petro's third presidential election forced the candidate to turn his political axis.

The one in which he had been comfortable for decades to fight against the established power.

The big traditional parties, Uribismo, the political and economic elites.

But the enemy was another.

Colombians defeated the status quo in the first round on May 29 by voting for change.

The one that Petro represented and the one that enigma that Hernández represented, a brazen and foul-mouthed businessman in a Trumpist style who campaigned on social networks.

He even came out ahead in the polls after the first round, collecting all the flow of conservative votes that Gutiérrez had orphaned.

But the campaign was very long.

His strategy of hiding on Twitter and directing from Facebook but not showing his face in a single debate, in addition to the serious case of corruption that drags his mayor, weighed down his takeoff.

In front of him, a man who showed a deep ignorance of the country and its institutions, the ex-guerrilla Petro became the sensible change.

Hernández fought until the end, but he withdrew the same election night without making a sound.

"I called Gustavo to congratulate him on his victory and offer him my support to fulfill the promises of change for which Colombia voted today."

Petro's investiture as successor to Iván Duque, the last Uribe president, will be held on August 7.

The new government will join the left-wing regional axis that already includes the Mexican Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the Argentine Alberto Fernández, the Bolivian Luis Arce, the Peruvian Pedro Castillo and the Chilean Gabriel Boric.

The president-elect, who during the day had repeatedly insisted on his social networks on the possibility of electoral fraud, ended the day euphoric.

"My name is Gustavo Petro and I am his president!"

The polls were closed.

The campaign is over.

On Monday Petro starts the biggest of his battles.

The one to fulfill the expectations and the one to win over the others.

The one that will define how his name enters the history of Colombia.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-06-20

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