By Manuel Humberto Restrepo Domínguez on May 30, 2022.
Gustavo Petro embraces his vice candidate, Francia Márquez
More than 20 million people out of nearly 40 million eligible to vote went to the polls in Colombia on Sunday, in the most complex of all the elections of this XXI century, in which the democratic center of former president Uribe has continuously occupied the government palace and has come to control all public powers by co-optation or decisions with implicit corruption.
The victory of the left leaning Historical Pact was resounding and with 8.5 million votes it obtained the largest historical vote of an alternative power group. The campaign of Gustavo Petro for president and Francia Márquez for vice-president reached the most outstanding electoral peak so far in Colombia, where the elites 200 years ago seized power and have already repeated today, that they are not willing to give up the country now. The greatest defeat was the candidate of the party in power that comes from entrails of Uribism and from whom current President Duque in practice became his campaign manager. As their curtain began to come down they made recent alterations to the constitution modifying the law of guarantees that prevented contracting in electoral times and putting at the service of the candidate his institutional resources, the deliberate intervention of the commander of the military forces and the actions of ministers and heads of portfolio; all of this was focused against the candidate Petro who was besieged by the biased and unethical media matrix. Nevertheless Duque was defeated, Uribe was defeated, the horror techniques against democratic security were defeated.
In the election the unexpected candidate, who emerged and created his space as a candidate without a party, was tough, macho, Rodolfo Hernández, a former mayor and wealthy businessman with Trump like characteristics, who tirelessly repeated as a campaign slogan to get the rats out of power and end corruption by taking away the checkbook of the corrupt. He came in second place with 6 million votes and is preparing to complete the missing votes to arrive strengthened going into the second round.
The so-called center candidate Federico “Fico” Gutiérrez, a Uribista once again played the politics of confusion, of the vacillating but dangerous center for the second time, with the same erratic and indecipherable strategy, promoter of a chameleon-like performance with no other sense than being a spoiler in the hunt.
The preparation of the second round scheduled for June 19 is coming, and in spite of the fact that the Uribista losing candidate, in his closing words, publicly offered his support to Rodolfo, the anti-corruption candidate, putting him in a tight spot and closing this path for him, because it will not be easy for him to gain that many votes offered by the corruption that Petro and Rodolfo together have just defeated. The Uribista strategy and that of the Duque government, its congressional bench and high-ranking officials, is perverse and directly opportunist, because they put a stick in the wheel to Rodolfo’s campaign, who could not accept it, nor justify in any way that to obtain the presidency he could count on any vote of the corrupt people he has just defeated.
In his closing speech Rodolfo said “the country won because it cannot continue with the same men and women” and “who thought they were going to govern eternally”, the ones he was referring to are precisely those of the party in power, Uribismo, the government, who lost the most in this election, and are always armored by the clans of corruption and are the ones directly responsible for the greatest frauds and crimes against the nation.
The Historic Pact is left with the option of continuing its unstoppable and determined task of collecting electorally in the second round, the defeat of the regime of hatred, which it has already achieved, and consolidating its definitive triumph in the second round. Perhaps he will have to campaign one by one for each new vote that comes from the more than 15 million abstainers, who on May 29 did not go out to vote and convince diverse social groups that the country is not governed with slogans, tik-tok phrases, nor disqualifications and rudeness. Thousands of peasants and marginalized people were forced to vote for Uribism, which has entered its decline and now they will be free to let their conscience speak, to separate themselves from the old colonialists, patriarchs, always clinging to policies of hate and death. In summary, there is a high percentage of the electorate that has not yet participated, Fico’s votes represent the defeated corruption that no one can accept and, Rodolfo has serious contradictions about corruption that is confusing.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano translation Resumen English