BOGOTA, Colombia – Colombian voters have selected their presidential candidates. This year’s ballot will list six candidates including a former guerrilla fighter, a woman who was kidnapped by guerrilla fighters and a mathematician.
In about two months, Colombian voters will elect between Gustavo Petro, Sergio Fajardo, Federico Gutiérrez, Óscar Iván Zuluaga, Íngrid Betancourt or Rodolfo Hernández. Voters selected Petro, Fajardo and Gutiérrez on Sunday and the others were not contested.
Petro is the front runner. This is despite the Colombians who resent his links to the guerrilla that was behind the 1985 fiery attack on the Supreme Court of Colombia. More than 100 people died and the Palace of Justice was destroyed.
Petro is the left-wing candidate for the Historical Pact party. Fajardo is the center-left candidate for the Hope Center Coalition party. Gutiérrez is the right-wing candidate for the Team for Colombia party.
Petro, a retired member of the former leftist guerrilla M-19, is the former mayor of Bogotá. Gutiérrez, a civil engineer, is the former mayor of Medellín. Fajardo, a mathematician, is also a former mayor of Medellín and the former governor of Antioquia.
During the 2018 presidential elections, Petro ranked second and Fajardo ranked third when they lost against President Iván Duque. The majority of Colombian-Americans with dual citizenship in South Florida supported the conservative candidate.
Two parties, including Duque’s party, didn’t participate in the primaries and one of the lesser known candidates is running as an independent.
Zuluaga is the candidate of former President Álvaro Uribe’s Democratic Center party. Betancourt, a former senator who was kidnapped by leftist guerrilla fighters, is the candidate of the Oxygen Green party. Hernández, the former mayor of Bucaramanga, is running under the Anticorruption League.
The presidential election is on May 29. If none of the candidates get more than 50% of the total votes, the top two candidates will forge ahead to a run-off election.