Colombia enters a new era with a big question mark: will a radical Petro or a moderate one rule?

BUCARAMANGA.- “Colombia changes with Petro and France.” The already elected president Gustavo Petro has reached the sky so often dreamed of by the radical left after several decades of political struggle. To do this, he shattered his electoral ceiling of 8.5 million votes, and put an end to the fear that aroused and the anti-PT belligerence of a good part of the country. The vote of confidence in someone almost always under suspicion opens a new era in Colombiawith a big question about the new tenant of the Casa de Nariño flying over the country: Will it be the historical radical, always involved in violent political battles, or the politician who has needed to soften his political program and agree with dozens of operators to come to power?Petro thus exceeded 11 million votes, with which he was proclaimed president-elect, a historic vote above the 10.3 million that Iván Duque obtained in 2018. A storm of votes that has turned Colombia, traditionally conservative, upside down. Fundamental to its success was adding to its votes from the Esperanza Center, in addition to capturing abstentionists from the first round.Petro supporters celebrate the victory at the Movistar Arena in BogotáDANIEL MUNOZ – AFPColombians decided that this fiery former M-19 guerrilla, whip of the paramilitaries in the National Congress and mayor with ineffective management in Bogotá, be the one to lead the much-desired change by the vast majority of the country “sucked” (weary) with corruption and politicians. As in the rest of Latin America, the change and the vote of punishment against the rulers won., as has happened previously in Uruguay, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Honduras and Costa Rica. The rulers linked to the Puebla Group immediately celebrated the new victory of the Great Homeland. To reach the final goal, Petro’s team fitted one piece after another of their political puzzle. More than a year at the top of the polls, added to the victory of the Historical Pact in the legislative elections and the first electoral round were not enough, Petro needed more votes, which came with the cataract of pacts with a good part of the establishment to achieve “victory for God and for the people”, as he wrote on his social networks.The image of Petro and Márquez at the Movistar Arena awaiting the results that gave them victory JUAN BARRETO – AFP To the team of senators as controversial as Roy Barreras and Armando Benedetti, to the discredited former president Ernesto Samper, to the Chavista Piedad Córdoba, a close ally of Nicolás Maduro, to electoral advisers convicted of corruption or former militants of terrorist groups, Petro joined centrists and progressiveseven heads of the most traditional politics, such as the former mayor of Cúcuta Ramiro Suárez, who has been in prison for several years. a certain desertion of the uribista ranks, which after Hernández’s first statements against his political bosses moved to the ranks of abstention, something that was noted in the lower percentage of voting in Antioquia and its capital, Medellín. On this side the accounts began to fail engineer Hernández, who started with a calculation of 11 million supports, the sum of the six he got in the first round plus the five of the Uribista candidate, Fico Gutiérrez. But half a million votes fell by the wayside, fundamental when the difference between the two candidates was only 700,000 thousand supports. The rest was left for the dirtiest campaign in historywhich placed the missing daughter of the engineer in an insane asylum, which took him to the emergency room on Saturday for mental illness, which turned him into a dangerous sexist by adulterating his interventions or which even moved an investigation to Miami for the fortune he has saved there .Relief and satisfaction barely known by Petro’s victory in his electoral bunker at the Movistar Arena DANIEL MUNOZ – AFP Of the heterogeneous alliance that reaches the government, where Vice President Francia Márquez will act as Minister of Equality, Doubts arise about to what extent Petro will be handcuffed in his long-sought presidency or whether he will be able to insist on his radical positions. Threats to convene a Constituent Assembly to follow the Bolivarian path or any threat to private companies were removed from its 2018 orthodox agenda. The desire for change and the two decades of Uribe government were more powerful than Petro’s ties to the Venezuela of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. It is taken for granted not only the reestablishment of diplomatic and economic relations with the neighboring country, but also a gradual rapprochement. The former president of the Spanish government, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, is called upon to fulfill this task, in addition to reaching agreements with Maduro’s allied guerrillas. Despite the fact that the Historical Pact and allies only monopolize 115 of the 290 congresses, the Colombian political tradition will be in charge to facilitate governance for the new president since he takes office in August.