As polls predicted, the Colombian presidential election should be a close contest. With 79.6% of the polls counted, this Sunday (19), Gustavo Petro has 51%, and Rodolfo Hernández, 46.6%.
The Colombian electoral system works in two parts. The quick count is done with the electronic counting of the minutes sent by the poll workers at the end of the voting. The manual counting, vote by vote, with which the final result is given, also starts immediately, but the result only comes out in a few days.
It is the final chapter of a campaign that had everything: verbal attacks, leaks of videos of campaign meetings, refusal to participate in debates, alleged death threats and even the suggestion that Petro might not accept the result, pointing out alleged irregularities of the electoral body.
The new president of Colombia will find the country with serious problems, especially in the social, economic and security areas. Even with a projection of GDP growth of 6.1% for 2022, inflation, at 9%, worries, as well as unemployment, in the double digits, with an index of 11.1%.
There is strong popular dissatisfaction, reflected in the wave of protests in 2019 and 2021, when demonstrations to overturn a proposed tax reform expanded into a wide range of demands, from a more inclusive society to an end to rural violence and full implementation of the agreement. with the Farc.
Unlike the country’s current leader, Iván Duque, both candidates want not only to complete this objective, but also to reopen dialogue with the last guerrilla still active, the ELN (National Liberation Army).
Another challenge is the integration of refugees — Colombia has so far received 2.5 million Venezuelans, the country that has hosted the most immigrants from its neighbor. Both Petro and Hernández are in favor of reestablishing relations with the Maduro regime and for the government to stop recognizing opponent Juan Guaidó as president.
Violence is another problem. This Sunday, Petro’s Historical Pact stated that the inspector Roberto Carlos Rivas, a member of the coalition, was murdered on the way to the place where he would work, in Guapi, in the Valle del Cauca. There was also a shooting in San Vicente del Caguán, in Caquetá, a former stronghold of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) — a soldier was killed in the episode.
Defense Minister Diego Molano lamented the case, in which the soldier died “while carrying out his duty. About the complaint in Guapi, he promised to carry out an investigation.
In an interview with the newspaper El País, Petro raised doubts about the electoral system, insinuating that there could be fraud. “There is no neutrality in the Registrar [autoridade eleitoral], they have a clear affinity with the other candidate. If there is a transparent result that shows my defeat, I will accept it. But it has to be transparent. And if I win, it must also be transparent,” he said.
The left-wing candidate’s doubts were fueled by the leak, on Saturday, of a video with images of a simulation of the tally of votes by the Registraduría giving victory to Hernández – the body said it was just a test. This Sunday morning, at the beginning of the vote, Alexander Vega Rocha, responsible for the body, said that “institutionalism is stronger than disinformation”. “The population must vote normally, with the guarantee that the process will take place in a normal way.”
The list of controversies, in a way, hid a claim of historical characteristics, whose mark was the vote against traditional forces, mirrored in the absence of candidates from the Liberal and Conservative parties and from the Democratic Center, legend of former president Álvaro Uribe and the current, Iván Duque, in the final round.
Hernández voted early in Bucaramanga, his electoral stronghold and where his campaign is based. He previously recorded a video with his mother, who said, “I didn’t want you to get into this, but since you are, I hope you win.” The candidate has no plans to go to the capital and said he will monitor the result in his committee, nicknamed Casa de Nariño, after the Colombian presidential palace.
Petro already voted late in the morning in Bogotá. “I invite everyone to come out to vote. Young people, women, the polls are waiting for you to change Colombia’s history. We must defeat any attempt at fraud with a mass vote,” he said, again raising doubts about the country’s electoral system. .
