CThe next president of Colombia will be elected by the people on Sunday. It is a race that seems to have defied every expectation and has been one the most significant for decades. Polls put the two candidates—former rebel member, leftist Gustavo Petro and the conservative outsider Rodolfo Hernández—neck-and-neck.
Analysts tell TIME that despite Petro leading the May 29 first round vote with 40.4% to Hernández’s 28.2%, the former Bogotá mayor is hardly guaranteed to win when voters cast their ballots on June 19. The country’s troubled, often violent, relationship with leftist guerilla groups means that there is major opposition to Petro in some quarters. Hernández—a Donald Trump-like real estate mogul who pledged to “drain the swamp”—is a wild-card candidate, having beaten out more traditional conservative candidates like Federico Gutiérrez.
Whichever candidate wins, the election result will mark a major break from the status quo in the traditionally conservative country, which has long been the U.S.’s closest ally in Latin America.
Learn more Colombians Want Change. They’ll Get It No Matter Who Wins the Presidential Election
These are the facts about Colombia’s Presidential Election:
Gustavo Petro: Who are you and what is his policy?
Presidential candidate Gustavo Petro and his vice-presidential candidate Francia Márquez of Pacto Historico coalition celebrate after the presidential election first round on May 29 2022 in Bogota, Colombia.
Guillermo Legaria—Getty Images
This will be the third time that Petro, 62, has run for the presidency—in 2018 he was beaten by current president Iván Duque by 12 percentage points in a run-off. Although Petro received 8 million votes in that election, he also had one of the highest disapproval ratings of the 2022 vote’s first-round candidates.
Petro is divisive. Over the past decades, Colombia’s government has been fighting both extreme-right paramilitary organizations and left-leaning terrorist guerrilla parties. Former member of M-19 (left-wing guerrilla organization) in 1980s, it is now disbanded. Petro voted against armed struggle during the 1980s and opted for electoral politics. He has held positions in both houses of Congress, and was mayor of Bogotá from 2012 to 2016. He was removed from office for a brief period in 2014 for allegations of improperly privatizing some waste collection services—a scandal that his opponents argue shows his unsuitability to govern the country. (An international court said the decision violated Petro’s rights.)
His combative nature—including calling a columnist who disagreed with his policies a “neo-Nazi” in March and saying in 2020 that he would support civil disobedience—have sometimes soured public opinion.
But it’s Petro’s left-wing orientation that sets him most apart from his rival. He has vowed to end new fracking projects and oil exploration—Colombia relies on fossil fuels for half of its exports. He wants to increase taxes on the 4,000 wealthiest people, nationalize pension plans, and tackle food poverty—almost 16 million people in Colombia live on two meals or fewer per day, according to the National Association of Foodbanks.
Months-long protests in 2021—initially sparked by proposed tax hikes and plans to privatize healthcare, then exacerbated by violent police crackdowns under the right-wing Duque—signaled Colombians’ frustration with inequality and the established political order. In this context, Petro’s policies have struck a chord.
“There is a sense in Colombian society that the very unequal distribution of power and wealth can no longer be tolerated,” says Ivan Briscoe, program director for Latin America at the International Crisis Group. “What Petro is offering is systemic change: in political leadership, in the fundamental way society functions, and in the way that the benefits of economic growth are distributed.”
Petro has galvanized support among the urban poor in cities like Bogotá, but struggled against Hernández in more conservative, rural areas in the first round of voting. “There is a small-business-owning middle class in Colombia, which believes in advancing personally on the basis of hard work,” says Briscoe. “They recognize that the status quo is unfair, that the political leaders are not performing as they should do, but are worried about changing the entire system and wealth distribution in a way that is detrimental to their interests.”
It is still recovering from decades of conflict between government and far-right paramilitary organizations and leftist rebel movements. These groups became involved in drug trafficking and other human rights violations. The trauma of this period has “prejudiced” many Colombians against leftist groups, says Briscoe, and favored conservative politics.
Petro is still popular with liberal-minded voters who are hungry for reform. A Petro presidency would be characterized by political firsts—with the former rebel member being the first leftist leader in Colombia, and his running mate, social activist Francia Marquéz, the first Afro-Colombian woman to serve as vice president.
Learn more Colombians Want Change. They’ll Get It No Matter Who Wins the Presidential Election
Who is Rodolfo Hernández and what are his policies?
Colombian presidential candidate Rodolfo Hernández speaks during a gathering with the Colombian community in Miami, Florida, on June 9 2022.
Eva Marie Uzcategui—AFP/Getty Images
Hernández, 77, was a largely unknown figure on the national stage only months ago. He won the final round thanks to his brash style, and smart use of social media.
Hernández has explored new territory for Colombian politicians, having amassed more than 500,000 followers on TikTok. He doesn’t mind being the butt of a joke, says Silvana Amaya, a senior analyst at risk consultancy firm Control Risks and former ministerial adviser. “He loves when people make memes about him, as it helps him go viral and connect with voters on a personal level using humor.”
Hernández’s actual politics are harder to define. But his focus on corruption, analysts say, is accompanied by a desire to shrink the state’s budget. His support for socially liberal policies including the right to abortion is also part of his platform. Hernández has attempted to balance a business-friendly attitude with promises to lift the vulnerable out of poverty.
In some respects, Hernández’s record reveals a different picture. His corruption allegations in his Bucaramanga Mayorship (2016-2019) are currently under scrutiny. He is expected to appear before the court in July. As a real estate magnate, Hernández has pledged to build 20,000 homes for the poor but that was never carried out.
These contradictions don’t seem to matter to many of his voters, says Amaya. “It’s important to understand that some people here vote more AgainstYou are more than For someone. Some are so scared of the left-wing government that Colombia is governed by, they won’t vote for Petro. These are just a few examples of the things that can happen. [the corruption scandals] don’t really impact their decision.”
Amaya adds that Hernández’s League of Anti-Corruption Rulers party only has two elected representatives in Congress. It would be difficult for him, as president, to make laws and govern the country efficiently. “The question is: would he be willing to play the traditional political game of offering something to Congress in exchange for passing his reforms? Or will he maintain his message of anti-corruption and refuse to negotiate?” she says.
However, under Colombian law, Hernández would have 90 days as president during which decrees can be signed without the support of Congress. Analysts including Amaya and Briscoe worry that this power, paired with his desire to overhaul governing bodies, could encourage Hernández to bypass the rule of law. “He has the disposition of someone who is willing to take draconian executive measures to get the job done,” Briscoe says.
What does this mean for U.S.-Colombia relations?
The election result could upend the U.S.’s relationship with Colombia, whose influence in the region has been waning for some time. The Colombian presidents who studied abroad before returning to politics could communicate fluently in English and had friendly relationships with Washington during their time in office. Both Petro and Hernández break this mold.
If Petro wins, Colombia would be the latest in Latin America’s new pink tide—a shift towards the left that has seen Gabriel Boric win the Chilean presidency in December and is expected to return Lula da Silva to power in Brazil’s upcoming elections in October. Amaya believes that Petro will seek to form a wide alliance with the leftist governments of the region, which could prove less friendlier for Washington.
A Petro win could also work in the Republican Party’s electoral favor back home, Briscoe says. “I think there will be political constituencies in the Republican Party which will try to exploit the sight of another country falling to the left as part of their efforts to demonize the Biden presidency.”
What could be even more embarrassing for Biden is either candidate’s recognition of Nicolás Maduro’s government in Venezuela, with which the U.S. cut ties in 2019. Both Petro and Hernández have said they will restore relations with Maduro, in a blow to the U.S-backed Juan Guaidó, who declared himself interim president in 2019 and is based in Venezuela.
The Colombian military could also be a problem. The U.S. provided support, training and investment to Colombia’s military for decades as part of its wider strategy against communist movements throughout the Western Hemisphere. Human Rights Watch claims that the Colombian Army secretly cooperated with paramilitary groups of far-right in fighting against the far-left rebels in the long-running conflict.
The U.S. Department of Defense revealed plans in May to build closer relations with Colombian forces under right-wing President Duque. Petro has promised to prosecute security forces that are accused of violating human rights. Many of these troops received military training from the U.S.
While Hernández’s policies may be less threatening to the U.S., the Biden administration may worry about his resemblance to authoritarian leaders in Latin America, most notably El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. In March 2021, Hernández praised Bukele for winning a supermajority in legislative elections, which the Colombian said “cleaned [the Salvadoran] Congress” of “corrupt” politicians.
“If we see Hernández veering in the direction of a bombastic populist like Bukele, there’ll be a whole host of concerns for the Biden presidency, which sees in these authoritarian-leaning leaders as a threat to the basics of the rule of law and democracy in the region,” Briscoe says.
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