AFP- Bogota - Hand in hand with a senator and former guerrilla, the left in Colombia is heading to win the first round of the presidential election this Sunday, driven by the erosion of the right in power and the social unrest that uncovered a wave of massive protests.

The candidate Gustavo Petro, 62, widely dominates the voting intentions in his third attempt to reach the

presidency, but everything indicates that he will not have enough margin to avoid the ballot on June 19.

Federico Gutiérrez (47) and Rodolfo Hernández (77), the first candidate for a right-wing coalition and related to the ruling party; the second a millionaire outsider, are emerging as his likely rivals in the second round, according to polls.

If expectations are fulfilled, the left will achieve its best electoral result in this country of 50 million

inhabitants, historically governed by elites and plagued by drug trafficking and increasing violence, despite

the 2016 peace agreement with the dissolved FARC guerrilla.

Petro, who laid down his arms in 1990 after the demobilization of the M-19, the nationalist rebel group in

which he was a member for 12 years, embodies the rupture. 'There are really two options: either keep

things the way they are in Colombia or change,' he says.

Regarding the end of the polarized campaign, Gutiérrez aligned himself with the desire for reforms: 'I am

going to summon all sectors so that we transform Colombia because it does need a change, but that

change has to be safe.'

'In the last four years, inequality and levels of poverty, disagreement, and discontent have deepened, and

Petro is the one who has been able to read and interpret and connect with the electorate,' academic analyst

Daniel García-Peña told AFP. .

Thus, the choice is defined between the radical change proposed by Petro and the moderate one proposed by Gutiérrez or the alternative of Hernández wanting to end the corruption that he sees everywhere. The three have been mayors of Bogotá, Medellín and Bucaramanga, respectively.

None of the favorites defends the management of the conservative Iván Duque, very unpopular for the economic management of the pandemic and who faced massive protests in 2019 and 2021 led by young

people who were harshly repressed by the public force.

Transparency questioned
Around 39 million Colombians are voluntarily called to the polls between 1:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. GMT. The Historic Pact, the coalition led by Petro and Francia Márquez, the charismatic Afro-leader who wants to

reach the vice presidency, has just obtained the best result for the left in legislative elections, although without securing majorities.

The body that organizes the voting is questioned by the inconsistencies in the preliminary count of those elections, which subtracted votes from Petro's movement. Concerned about fraud, the leftist unsuccessfully demanded an external audit of the software used to calculate the votes.

His doubts about the transparency of the process further fueled tensions with concern for the safety of the candidates.

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