Colombia goes to polls in election pitting outgoing leader’s ally against pro-Trump candidates | Colombia

Colombians are voting in the first round of the South American nation’s presidential election, choosing between candidates with radically different visions of the future of peace in a country gripped by decades of armed conflict.

Sunday’s vote, seen as a referendum on the policies of outgoing President Gustavo Petro, came 10 years after Colombia signed a historic peace deal with the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

That agreement offered hope of freeing the country from a vicious cycle of fighting between rebel groups and the government, but violence has since flared up again and peaked ahead of the presidential vote. Criminal groups have increasingly launched drone attacks, shootings have negatively impacted the race, and last June presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay, 39, was fatally shot at a political rally.

In a country where the fight for peace has long been part of the political ethos, the question of how to resolve conflict is once again dividing the country.

There are 14 candidates on the ballot, but the election has essentially become a three-horse race.

Senator and peacebuilder Iván Cepeda (Petro’s ally) led the polls and promised that Petro would continue his “total peace” initiative by negotiating with the remaining rebel groups in the country and signing peace agreements with them in order to resolve the persistent crisis.

Although the peace plan largely failed due to criminals taking advantage of a ceasefire with the government, Cepeda and Petro maintained strong support among many due to progressive policies under Petro, such as increasing the minimum wage.

Running against Cepeda are Abelardo de la Espriella and Paloma Valencia, who have vowed to attack armed groups more harshly.

De la Espriella, a flamboyant lawyer known as “The Tiger,” has particularly appealed to voters in recent weeks as he portrays himself as an outsider willing to emulate the heavy-handed tactics used in El Salvador’s war on gangs, which has dramatically reduced gang violence but fueled accusations of human rights abuses.

Valencia is considered to be under the political patronage of Colombia’s former president and strongman Álvaro Uribe, who ruled the country with strong support from the United States from 2002 to 2010, when his government repelled Farc rebels in an offensive that cost large civilians.

Both de la Espriella and Valencia have publicized their closeness to Donald Trump, even though he has taken a more aggressive stance toward Latin America than any U.S. president in decades and has pressured countries such as Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico to crack down more forcefully on criminal groups.

If no candidate wins at least 50% of the vote (an extremely rare occurrence in Colombia), the two candidates with the most votes will face a runoff election in June.

Maria Eugenia, 57, a seamstress in central Bogota, the Colombian capital, said she welcomed an all-out attack on expanding criminal groups, regardless of the human cost.

While he approved of Petro’s efforts to improve the country’s medical infrastructure, he said he voted for la Espriella because violence in the country’s rural areas was out of control.

“Of course, whenever you come in with a heavy hand, there’s always going to be an argument,” he said. “But some people will have to fall down to clean things that need cleaning.”

Others, like 26-year-old Cristian Morales, who was hanging around outside Eugenia’s shop, disagree. Although Petro’s peace plan failed on many fronts, he said making changes to a plan to save the country from the cycle of violence was far better than going to another extreme.

He said he plans to vote for Cepeda and that the candidate prioritizes efforts to preserve Colombia’s biodiversity and expand access to education over bold promises to resolve the country’s deep-seated conflict. That would be something Morales said he thought was impossible to do in just four years of a president’s term.

“The resolution of this conflict will not result in aggressive conflict, but only in more bloodshed,” he said. “It’s very difficult because it’s either dialogue or arming, and civil conflict doesn’t help anyone.”