MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

“Colombian Trump” now 3 weeks from being elected

After failing to foresee he would make it to the runoff, pollsters are already heralding the “Colombian Trump” will beat Petro

Non-leftwing voters have all their eggs now in Rodolfo Hernandez's basket, after the candidate many dub the “Colombian Trump” made it to the second round against all forecasts, to face off former M19 guerrilla leader and current Senator Gustavo Petro June 19.

Like Chile's Gabriel Boric Font, Hernández's “anti-politics” coalition has capitalized on the anger of disenchanted citizens, who blame several of the ills they suffer under the traditional political class ruling for its own benefit and not for that of the people it swore to serve. Hernández is poised to become the second outsider to politics to reach his country's presidency, which certainly is a favorable sign for Argentina's Javier Milei.

The 77-year-old engineer based his campaign on TikTok anti-corruption postings and markets himself as an “outsider” to politics, despite being under investigation in some 30 cases of alleged aggression against public officials during his tenure as Mayor of Bucaramanga. He has also been charged with irregularities in implementing new solid waste disposal technologies.

The candidate of the so-called League of Anti-Corruption Rulers resigned from that post at the capital of the department of Santander in September of 2019 after being suspended twice for misconduct. He also made headlines in 2016 when he said in an interview that “I am a follower of a great German thinker named Adolf Hitler.”

This time around his few campaign proposals consisted of donating the president's salary, closing embassies, eliminating the presidential advisor's office on women's equality, and removing official vehicles from congressmen.

The embassies to be eliminated are those of Algeria, Australia, Austria, Bolivia, Denmark, Philippines, Finland, Ghana, Hungary, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Dominican Republic, Russia, Singapore, Sweden, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Uruguay, and Vietnam.

“They do not work, they open at 10 o'clock and close at one o'clock, it is vagabondage”. “Poor poor Colombians, they have us ruined with that way of spending money,” he said.

“Today corruption lost,” said Hernandez after knowing Sunday's results and embarked on a quest to seek the votes he needs to beat Petro, particularly those of right-wing candidate Federico Gutierrez, who was expected to advance to the runoff and thus became Sunday's biggest loser.

“Today the country won because it does not want to continue one more day with the same people who have led us to the painful situation we are in today. Today we won the firm will of the citizens to put an end to corruption as a system of government. Today the country lost the country of politicking and corruption,” he said.

“I am aware of the need to unite the country in a change. And I am aware of the difficulties that there will be when I am president,” he added. “I am not naïve about the resistance that there will be against a government determined to put an end to politicking and corruption,” he went on.

He also hoped the Colombian people would help him achieve victory. “It will be this people who will build the victory in the second round,” he stressed.

Hernández has also pledged to resume diplomatic and consular ties with Venezuela.

The candidate, whose daughter was kidnapped by the Marxist guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) and whose father was held hostage for more than 100 days by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), has proposed to reopen peace talks with these armed groups.

Hernández’s outlandish also include a return en masse to the countryside, where the State would give people settlers a plot of 60 square meters, in addition to raising tariffs to protect domestic production and a VAT reduction to 10%. In his view, with corruption suppressed, the government will have enough funding as taxation is.

If elected, Hernández, aged 77, would be Colombia's second oldest president at the time of his inauguration after Manuel Antonio Sanclemente who, in 1898, took office at the age of 84.

After failing to foresee he would make it to the runoff, Colombian pollsters are already heralding Hernández will beat Petro. If all of Federico Gutiérrez’s votes go to Hernández, he would garner an unsurmountable 52% edge.

Petro now needs to persuade voters of other groupings as well as those who did not vote Sunday to reverse the trend.