Populist businessman Rodolfo Hernandez took a strong second place in Colombia’s presidential election on Sunday, successfully winning the run-off next month against former leftist Gustavo Petro.
With the most results, Hernandez, a staunch populist compared to former US President Donald Trump, won about 28 percent of the vote, defeating more prominent center-right candidate Federico Gutierrez, who was third with 24 percent.
Petro won by more than 40 percent of the vote, but given that most of Gutierrez’s supporters are likely to support Hernandez in the second round, the leader of his left has been cut off to win the presidency. He won about 8.5 million votes, while Hernandez and Gutierrez took almost 11 million together.
“This is really the hardest scenario we can imagine for Petro, and I don’t think his campaign team will be very happy,” said Sandra Botero, a political analyst at Rosario University in Bogota. “It will be a difficult fight for him in the second round.
The results were supposed to boost financial markets on Monday. Economists have predicted that if Hernandez qualifies for the second round, the peso and Colombian assets will increase in anticipation of his eventual victory in the runoff.
For most of the campaign, Petro and Gutierrez conducted opinion polls, but Hernandez, an honest 77-year-old millionaire who funded his own campaign, rose in the final polls before the vote. Some voters on the right seem to have turned to him at the last minute as their best chance of keeping Peter out of power.
“I am now telling those who voted for me that I will not take you,” Hernandez said in a video message shortly after the results were announced.
There were jubilant scenes in his hometown of Bucaramanga, where he was mayor for four turbulent years in 2016-2019, but was known as an uncompromising anti-corruption fighter. When he left office, he had an approval rating of 84 percent.
Thousands of his supporters took to the streets of the city, waving Rodolfo flags and chanting his name.
Hernandez’s age, wealth, and tirades against traditional politicians have led some to call him “Colombian Trump.” Others, perhaps in terms of his permanent complexion and carefully trimmed comb, liken him to the Italian Silvio Berlusconi.
When he launched his campaign last year, few gave him a chance, and recently in March he was around 10 percent. Hernandez has no political party and leads an impromptu movement called the League of Governors to fight corruption. He made very few public appearances during the campaign, using social media extensively instead.
His simple message of ending corruption by cutting state budgets has echoed in a country where many voters see fighting corruption as a top priority. He promised financial rewards to citizens who report corrupt government officials.
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As mayor, he had a turbulent term. In 2018, he was removed for slapping a city councilor, and the following year he was banned again for violating Colombia’s campaign rules while in public office.
Despite his anti-corruption rhetoric, Hernandez himself faces corruption charges. He is accused of illegally awarding a garbage recycling contract in Bucaramanga. He denies the allegations, but the case is due to be heard in July, just two weeks before Colombia’s next president takes office.
Petro’s result confirms that he has strong support throughout the country, especially among the young and the poor. But he also suggests he has a ceiling of about 40 percent struggling to break, as noted in the last election in 2018, when he finished second to right-wing President Ivan Duque.
“Everyone knows that Peter is an ally [Marxist guerrilla groups] Fark, ELN and the country cannot forget how these bandits have been scaring us for years, “said Jorge Garzon, 34, who voted for Gutierrez on Sunday. “This is Gustavo Petro and we can’t let him win.”
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