Left-wing Petro wins Colombian presidency

The left-wing candidate Gustavo Petro has won the most votes in the second round of the Colombian presidential elections on Sunday with 50.57 percent, ahead of his rival, the far-right Rodolfo Hernández (47.16%), according to official results of the Registry corresponding to the scrutiny of 97.06 percent of the tables.

Petro has 10,984,247 votes and Hernández, 10,242,763 and 490,118 blank votes have been counted (2.2%).

Petro would achieve a historic victory for the left, which for the first time gained access to the Casa de Nariño, the seat of the Colombian Presidency.

In his first tweet as president-elect, Petro wrote: Today is a holiday for the people. Let him celebrate the first popular victory. May so many sufferings be cushioned in the joy that today floods the heart of the Homeland.

Petro’s project largely collects the demands of the important social protests that shook the streets of Colombia between 2019 and 2020 and that caused a political upheaval similar to that experienced in countries such as Chile, Ecuador or Peru.

RADICAL CHANGE
His program proposes a radical change in the economic model, based on a boost to agricultural production after agrarian reform with which to attack inequality. In Colombia, more than half of the land is in the hands of a privileged minority that does not reach 2 percent of the population.

In the first round, Hernández won more than 5.9 million votes in the first electoral round on May 29, 28.17 percent of the votes that were cast, only surpassed by the 8.5 million ballots for Petro ( 40.34 percent).

Petro will be the successor of the conservative president Iván Duque (2018-2022), who by law could not aspire to re-election.

After learning of Petro’s victory, the outgoing president tweeted that they agreed to meet to start a harmonious transition.