Voters in Colombia started to forged their votes for a brand new president on Sunday in an election that will give the South American nation the first left-wing chief in its historical past.
The leftist candidate, Gustavo Petro, has captured worldwide consideration resulting from his dominant lead in pre-election polls, in what is taken into account to be a historically conservative nation.
The 62-year-old ex-guerrilla and former mayor of the capital, Bogota, is hoping to win over 50% of the votes in Sunday’s first-round and thus keep away from a second-round run-off towards his most important right-wing rival.
His operating mate, Francia Marquez, is hoping to develop into the nation’s first-ever black feminine vice chairman.
Petro and Marquez are operating as candidates for the Historic Pact coalition
Federico Gutierrez, the previous mayor of Medellin, is standing because the candidate for an alliance of right-wing events and has been polling at round 25% compared to Petro’s 40%. He has additionally acquired help from outgoing President Ivan Duque, though it’s but to be seen whether or not help from the chief with record-low approval scores will show advantageous.
Polls might be open between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. native time (1300 to 2100 GMT) with slightly below 39 million folks eligible to participate. The second spherical, if wanted, is about for June 19.
What do the candidates stand for?
Gutierrez has tried to distance himself from claims that he’s the successor to Duque and the conservative “uribismo” motion he is related to — named after former President Alvaro Uribe Velez who ran the nation between 2002 and 2010.
The 47-year-old center-right candidate has made pledges for presidency spending together with a primary earnings for some 5 million households. Colombia has one of many highest ranges of earnings inequality on this planet and about 40% of the inhabitants lives in poverty, in response to the World Financial institution.
Gutierrez has pledged to crack down on crime on this planet’s largest cocaine producing nation
Petro, who misplaced towards Duque in 2018, has plans to redistribute pensions, make public universities free, and sort out the nation’s inequality and poverty. He has additionally mentioned he’ll put a cease to new oil and gasoline initiatives.
The third-highest polling candidate, the impartial Bucaramanga Rodolfo Hernandez, is operating on a platform of anti-corruption guarantees. The 77-year-old can also be below investigation over whether or not he intervened to learn an organization that his son has been linked to.
Colombia’s violent previous and current
Petro’s recognition has been met with pushback from components of the nation that keep a deep-rooted concern of the left which is related to each the guerrilla teams that stored up a decades-long battle with the central authorities, in addition to the disastrous financial insurance policies of neighboring Venezuela.
Nevertheless, it was below Duque’s presidency that peace talks with the final remaining guerrilla group, the ELN, had been suspended following the historic settlement with the FARC simply previous to Duque’s election. Petro, a former member of the M-19 city insurgent group that laid down its arms in 1990, has vowed to restart peace talks.
Colombia’s historical past has been marked by many years of civil conflict, violent drug traffickers, guerrilla teams, and political assassinations — each Petro and Gutierrez have acquired loss of life threats. The Duque authorities was additionally internationally condemned final yr after its violent crackdown on anti-poverty protests noticed dozens of civilians killed.
Candidates have expressed considerations over voting irregularities throughout legislative elections in March, nonetheless, officers have put these right down to clerical errors and mentioned that there isn’t a probability of electoral fraud.
Observers from the Group of American States and the EU might be current and a few 300,000 armed police and troopers have been deployed to guard the 12,000 polling stations.
ab/jcg (EFE, Reuters, AFP)