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Left-wing ex-guerrilla Gustavo Petro has achieved a slim victory in Colombia’s presidential election.
Polls opened for the second spherical of the Latin American nation’s presidential election on Sunday, with former guerrilla chief Petro dealing with shock rival Rodolfo Hernandez, a 77-year-old businessman who managed to construct up a nationwide political following by counting on TikTok and Fb.
The race between Petro and Hernandez was the tightest within the nation in current reminiscence.
Gustavo Petro received Colombia’s presidential election by over 700,000 votes
Petro beat Hernandez by greater than 700,000 votes.
Hernandez conceded defeat in a video posted on social media.
“Colombians, as we speak the vast majority of residents have chosen the opposite candidate. As I mentioned throughout the marketing campaign, I settle for the outcomes of this election,” Hernandez mentioned.
Some 39 million individuals have been eligible to vote in Colombia, a rustic the place practically 40% reside beneath the poverty line and 11% are unemployed.
With the 2 anti-establishment candidates vying for the presidency, Sunday’s poll was seen as a highly effective rebuke to the nation’s conservative elite and present president, Ivan Duque.
Petro desires to ‘make historical past’
The 62-year-old Petro, a leftist with a reform agenda, comfortably received the preliminary vote final month by securing some 40.4% of the ballots. The result’s a sensation by itself, as a big a part of Colombia’s inhabitants harbors deep mistrust of each his insurance policies and his previous within the now-defunct M-19 city insurgent group, which included two years in jail on arms expenses.
However his supporters level to Petro’s plans to redistribute pensions, make public universities free and deal with the nation’s inequality and poverty. He has additionally mentioned he’ll put a cease to new oil and fuel initiatives.
“We’re one step from reaching the actual change we’ve waited for all our lives,” Petro mentioned. “We’re going to make historical past.”
Hernandez banks on TikTok
Maybe extra shocking was that Petro confronted Hernandez on Sunday. The previous mayor of the northern metropolis of Bucaramanga, who presents himself as a political outsider, managed to win over 28% of the preliminary vote and edge out conservative candidate Federico Gutierrez for an opportunity to go towards Petro within the second spherical.
Furthermore, Hernandez had managed to shut the hole between himself and Petro within the intervening weeks. The millionaire entrepreneur relied on TikTok and Fb to achieve potential voters. His wealth and unorthodox marketing campaign technique has prompted comparisons with former US President Donald Trump.
Hernandez has pledged to deal with corruption, regardless of dealing with an investigation for allegedly favoring his son’s firm in a waste administration tender throughout his time as mayor of Bucaramanga. He has additionally promised to supply free narcotics to addicts in a bid to combat drug traffickers.
“The election is straightforward. Vote for somebody who’s managed by the identical individuals as all the time or vote for me, who is not managed by anybody,” Hernandez mentioned forward of Sunday’s vote.
However the citizens may take concern with movies that not too long ago surfaced on-line displaying the 77-year-old partying on a non-public yacht with a number of youthful ladies. Others is perhaps turned off by Hernandez’s historical past of gaffes, most notably when he declared himself an admirer of “the good German thinker Adolf Hitler” in 2016. He later corrected himself by saying he was actually speaking about Albert Einstein.
dj, si/sri (AFP, Reuters, AP)
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