With less than a week to go before the definitive vote of Colombia’s 2022 presidential election, the majority of citizens have decided on their candidate, at least according to pollsters, despite important discrepancies between them as to who will win on June 19. In a polarized race that has pitched the progressive left-wing candidate Gustavo Petro against the conservative business tycoon Rodolfo Hernández, according to the last Yanhass poll to be released before Sunday, Petro would win the election with 42% of the vote, while Hernández gets 41%.
With only a one-point lead, while 13% of the electorate would cast a “protest vote” – voto en blanco – and among the highest percentage points for a recent election – another poll, released on Saturday by Guarumo/El Tiempo, gives the election to Hernández with 48.2% compared to 46.5% for Petro.
Regardless of the inclination of these two polls, the run-off is a cliff-hanger, and could be contested by either candidate should the difference in the votes be less than 1%, which in the first round on May 29, was represented by some 200,000 votes.
In his third attempt at the presidency, Gustavo Petro, and VP ticket Francia Márquez, are in the final stage of a social media campaign to convince undecided voters that they represent the “change” that Colombia needs, and if elected, the first left-wing government ever to take power in this country’s 200-years as a Republic.
But are Colombians ready for a hard-shift to the left? Or will the country’s proximity to Venezuela and fact that it received more than 1.7 million immigrants who fled a communist regime influence the perceptions of the still undecided. The large conservative voting electorate who lived through the most violent episodes of the internal conflict with FARC is also key for the 77-year-old former mayor of Bucaramanga, Rodolfo Hernández, to secure victory.
No poll answers these questions, but for many Colombians, Sunday’s vote marks a watershed moment for the country, and unclear consequences should Petro either win, or lose, the election.
One of the many pressing concerns on the minds of Colombians is how the peso will respond to the US dollar during the first trading day, on Monday, with the election outcome. With the results after the first-round on May 29, in which Petro won 8.5 million votes, and Hernández came second with 5.9 million, and the day’s surprise upset, the Colombian currency rallied to the greenback and strengthened almost 150 pesos, and attributed by investors to a so-called “Rodolfo effect.” Should Petro win, however, the markets will receive much of the initial impact, and the peso could rapidly devalue to the dollar, and trade much higher than this week’s average of $4,000.
Among Petro’s many campaign promises is the suspension of new oil and gas exploration contracts, raising of import duties and using private pension fund capital to finance social welfare spending. Petro’s planned economic policies have cast doubt in the business community of how he will levy an estimated COP$50 billion in a tax reform to Congress, when a year ago, President Duque’s original COP$21 billion reform to cover pandemic expenditures had to be scrapped with the outbreak of social protests and a national strike. Protests that crippled during three months the country’s economy, and extended the third wave in COVID-19 infections, resulting in an additional 10,000 deaths.
Included in a slate of leftist politicians who supported an indefinite strike was Petro, and his active role in backing the country’s largest trade unions, including the teacher’s union Fecode, will weigh heavily at the polls with “anybody but Petro” voters.
The spectre that politically-motivated violence could break out should Petro not win on Sunday was even voiced by his eldest daughter Sofía during an interview with Spain’s El Pais newspaper, in which the 20-year-old claims: “We cannot let Hernández become president, because should he win, there could be a social outbreak worse than the one witnessed last year.”
The comment made by Senator’s daughter was rebuked by Spanish journalist and columnist Salúd Hernández, in which she stated: “Look girl, don’t threaten. You know that many Colombians who will vote for ‘The Engineer’ do so knowing that his government will do far less damage to the country, than one run by your Daddy. After 50-years of violence are you going to continue in the same? Do you believe everyone is going to vote for your father out of fear?”
The fear of potential unrest is dominating the narrative this week on social media, given that Petro has repeatedly affirmed throughout the campaign that he could contest the election, signaling to many anti-Petro supporters that he will do so regardless of evidence of fraud. By claiming the election “was stolen,” Petro has the capacity to unleash the militants of his broad cross-generational base, among them, the National Strike Committee and protestors of the “First Line” (Primera Linea), who committed widespread acts of vandalism during the Paro Nacional.
Taking precautionary measures many Colombians are stocking up on essential items in case supply chains get disrupted with road blockades and protests sparked by Petro’s third failed – and most likely his last – attempt at the presidency. The former M-19 guerrilla recently remarked during a radio interview, that if lost the election, “he could return to doing what he did 30-years ago,” leaving many Colombians wondering if his affirmation is a threat in disguise, and possible announcement of an intention to rejoin an insurgency.
Even though Hernández is secure that he will receive almost all the votes that belonged to the center-right candidate “Fico” Gutiérrez, and which totaled 5 million, “The Engineer’s” campaign has skewed much of the systematic attacks from Petro’s social media camp, proving to many Colombians that the candidate will offer political decorum and economic continuity should he be elected. As food and gas prices continue to increase with inflation, this election has tested the nerves of Colombians to the point of exhaustion and raised real concerns over the stability of their livelihoods under a Petro government.
As the online barrage of fake news, personal attacks and cyber bullying continues until voting day, for many the election season has already drawn to close, and decisions taken on whether Petro’s “change” is an uncertain lurch to the left, and from which the country may take decades to recover. Or best stated by “The Engineer” Hernández: “I urgently call on all Colombians to unite and defend democracy.”
