Colombian Elections
February 23, 2022
Colombians will be voting in a new president on May 29, 2022, as current president Iván Duque Márquez will finish his second term and is ineligible to run again. The conservative and his party, Centro Democrático, have become more and more unpopular amid protests against corruption and higher taxes. This leaves the race wide-open to Duque’s longtime rival, leftist Gustavo Petro, who currently leads all other candidates by a margin of more than 20 percentage points.
While Petro’s lead is strong, the way elections are carried out may mean he doesn’t actually win. While recent polling shows him at 42%, the next four candidates have a combined 57%. Why does this matter? Well, mainly because Colombia’s elections stipulates that if no single candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, a run-off will be held in which only the top two candidates compete.
This seems the most likely scenario, and the two who are expected to advance into the runoff are Petro and centrist Sergio Fajardo. While Fajardo is projected to only receive 19% of the vote in the first round, he will likely increase his share in the second round. The other three significant candidates in the race are all either centrist or conservative, and their voters would likely prefer Fajardo over Petro.
This seems an even greater possibility when coupled with the fact that Petro’s disapproval rating is 54%, the highest of any candidate. Meanwhile, Fajardo has the highest net approval rating of all candidates, including Petro. But still, Fajardo has to make it past the first round. Businessman and fellow centrist Rodolfo Hernandez is within 5% of Fajardo, but he’s a relatively unknown politician who stands little chance of winning in the run-off. National symbol Ingrid Betancourt recently entered the race, and she could be a possible threat to Fajardo, as well.
I hope to write about the results, but if I don’t, you can look for them yourself on May 29. Argentine newspaper La Nacion will be covering it in-depth.
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