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BOGOTA, Colombia – Gustavo Petro, a former rebel who brought together young and poor voters with promises to transform an unequal society, was elected Colombia’s first left-wing president on Sunday in a resounding rejection of the ruling political establishment the South American nation for two years. centuries.
Petro received more than 50 percent of the vote, according to preliminary results, with a wave of support from Colombians desperate for change in a country struggling with high levels of poverty. The 62-year-old senator defeated foreign candidate Rodolfo Hernandez, a wealthy businessman who garnered about 47 percent of the vote in a race that was initially expected to be tight.
Colombia, the third largest nation in Latin America, is now the last country to move to the left in a region devastated by the economic assault of the coronavirus pandemic. Petro’s triumph in one of the continent’s historically most conservative countries is a striking example of how widespread discontent has shaken the status quo.
His victory is notable not only for his political ideology but also for the history of his life: a former clandestine guerrilla, who was sentenced to prison in the 1980s for his involvement with a rebel group, will now become president in a country that is still faltering. armed criminal violence. His presidency could have profound implications for Colombia’s economic model, the role of government, and its relationship with other countries in the hemisphere, including the United States, its most important ally.
Speaking from a crowded stage in the nation’s capital, he stood by the woman who will become Colombia’s first black vice president, Francia Márquez, an environmental activist who spearheaded an Afro-Colombian community that for for a long time she felt forgotten by the rulers. Petro called for a “great national dialogue” to unify the country and build peace.
“Peace means a Colombian society with opportunities. Peace means that someone like me can be president or someone like France can be vice president, “he said.” Peace means we must stop killing each other. “
The crowd, waving Colombian flags and bursting into applause, chanted together, “No more war!”
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Hernandez quickly accepted the results on Twitter.
“I hope this decision is beneficial for everyone,” he said in a video address on social media. “I hope that Gustavo Petro will know how to lead the country, that he will be loyal in his discussion against corruption and that he will not disappoint those who have chosen him.”
Petro’s comfortable leadership dampened fears, at least for the time being, that a fine race could lead any candidate to question the election results and provoke a wave of civil unrest a year after mass protests ravaged the country.
Petro’s campaign galvanized communities fighting the pandemic in a country where half the population does not have enough to eat and 40% live in poverty. His campaign took advantage of the despair and anger of those who took to the streets last year in mass protests across the country. And his victory is a sharp blow to the deeply unpopular administration of incumbent Ivan Duque, who many considered did little to improve the economic situation of one of the most unequal countries in the region.
But some fear that Petro’s policies, including his proposal to ban further oil exploration, could destroy Colombia’s economy. Others say a Petro presidency could test the country’s long but fragile democracy. He said he would declare a state of economic emergency to fight hunger if elected, a proposal criticized by some experts in constitutional law.
Analysts are concerned about his willingness to work around Congress and other democratic institutions to drive his agenda. Others predict that he will not be able to fulfill his promises with a divided legislature. As mayor of Bogota, Petro oversaw a large number of staff departures and was criticized for refusing to listen to his advisers.
“The question is whether the institutions will also be able to moderate it and hold it accountable,” said Sandra Botero, a political scientist at Rosario University in Colombia.
Petro proposes to transform the country’s economic system by redistributing wealth to the poor. She says she will establish free higher education, a universal public health system and a minimum wage for single mothers. He says it would raise taxes on the richest 4,000 Colombians and boost the local agricultural industry.
But he gave a candid message to his critics from the stage on Sunday night: “We will develop capitalism in Colombia,” he said.
The United States has long considered Colombia its most important and stable ally in the region. President Biden has described the country as the “key stone” of democracy in the hemisphere. Some are now concerned that Petro’s presidency will push for such a long-term partnership, especially in the two countries’ efforts to combat drug trafficking.
Petro argues that anti-narcotics policies have been a failure in recent decades and that air eradication of coca has done nothing to reduce the flow of cocaine into the United States. He has promised to focus on crop replacement. He also suggested changing the extradition treaty between the two countries.
“The prospects for continuing our normal approach to the fight against transnational crime are about zero,” said Kevin Whitaker, a former U.S. ambassador to Colombia and now a member of the Atlantic Council.
But Michael Shifter, a member of the Inter-American Dialogue, predicts that a Petro presidency will involve “many political attitudes” but little real hostility toward the United States, such as the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico. Shifter says it reflects a “new reality” captured by the division at the Biden Summit of the Americas earlier this month. “Latin America is on its way and the United States is on its way,” he said.
On Sunday night, Petro called for a “dialogue in the Americas without exclusions” and called on the United States to work with him on what he described as a priority of his diplomacy: the fight against climate change.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement: “On behalf of the United States, I congratulate the people of Colombia on making their voices heard in a free and fair presidential election. We look forward to working with President-elect Petro to further strengthen the US-Colombia relationship and move our nations forward to a better future. “
Petro told The Washington Post that he envisions a progressive alliance with Chile and Brazil, a new Latin American left built not on the extractive industries but rather to protect the environment. He also said he would normalize relations with neighboring Venezuela, a significant change from Duque, one of the region’s strongest opponents of Socialist President Nicolás Maduro.
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Elections mark once again for the political establishment in Latin America, where voters have tried to punish incumbent governments for the devastation caused by the pandemic. In Peru, rising poverty helped push Marxist rural schoolteacher Pedro Castillo to the presidency last year. In Chile, the region’s free market model, voters elected former student activist Gabriel Boric, 36, as president this year. And in Brazil, the largest country in Latin America, former left-wing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is leading the polls to oust President Jair Bolsonaro in October.
Many Colombians who voted Sunday in the country’s capital said they were desperate for something, anything, other than past presidents.
“For more than 200 years we have been subject to the right and the far right … and here things are bad, bad, bad,” said Henry Perdomo, a 60-year-old man who works in the industry, moments later who voted in favor. Petro in a working-class neighborhood south of Bogota. “We need a change.”
But some of his neighbors feared what the change might mean. Blanca Elena Timón Diaz, 52, who worked cleaning houses, was worried that Petro could jeopardize his savings and “turn the country into Venezuela.” His vote for Hernandez was, more than anything, a vote against the left.
Petro was a member of the April 19 Movement, or M-19, an urban political guerrilla that later demobilized, reached a peace agreement with the government, and became a political party. Fanny Betancourt, 81, still vividly remembers seeing the M-19 guerrillas storm the Bogota Courthouse in 1985. Her father died in the attack. Petro denies being involved in the siege; at that time he was imprisoned. He said he could not stand the idea of a former M-19 rebel as president.
For generations, many Colombians have associated the left with armed insurrections in its long history of conflict. Petro’s victory, less than six years after the country signed historic peace agreements with its largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), shows the extent to which the country has overcome this stigma, he said. the lawyer and political analyst Héctor Riveros.
Voting took place after a more tense, violent and uncertain election cycle than any other in Colombia’s recent history. For the first time, Colombians chose between two populist and anti-establishment candidates. Petro’s rival, Hernandez, the former mayor of Bucaramanga who had never before held a candidate for a national office, presented a unique message to eliminate corruption.
But the construction tycoon’s unfiltered message and lack of proposals turned down voters like Luz Marina Ríos, a 48-year-old in the capital. She said she was desperate for a president to find new …