The candidate of the center-right coalition in Colombia, Federico Gutiérrez, proposed this Monday to build a common front against Gustavo Petro, after the resounding electoral victory that the left-wing leader obtained on the way to the presidential elections on May 29.
“I am going to look for those of us who defend democracy and freedoms to come together”, affirmed Gutiérrez in radio interviews.
The 47-year-old former mayor of Medellín won the presidential nomination with 2.1 million votes ahead of Álex Char (706,000), in the primaries or partisan consultations that took place on Sunday simultaneously with the legislative ones.
Petro, a senator and former guerrilla fighter who raises the flags of a reformist progressive, with an emphasis on the defense of the environment, won the investiture of the left with 4.5 million votes, also promoting an unprecedented advance in Congress, where his coalition of Historical Pact became the main force in the Senate along with the Conservatives.
Gutiérrez is emerging as the card of the forces opposed to Petro, in the face of the decline of the Democratic Center, the party in power that former President Álvaro Uribe founded and one of the most punished in the legislative elections.
“I am talking about union between all those sectors that defend democracy and freedoms. Here what is at stake is the country, which is threatened by populist and authoritarian projects”, said the candidate of the Team for Colombia coalition.
Gutiérrez invited former Governor Sergio Fajardo (65), winner of the center coalition poll with 723,000 votes, to defeat the leader of the left together.
“Those who can defeat Petro are us and I am the candidate. I would invite Sergio Fajardo to accompany me. You have to leave the arrogance and pride, understand the moment in which we are”, he insisted to Blu Radio.
Petro, who lost the ballot in 2018 to Iván Duque, the unpopular president who will end his four-year term in August, starts as the favorite in this campaign. His eventual victory would be a historic turn in a country historically governed by the right.
In the event that no candidate obtains half plus one of the supports, there will be a second round on June 19.
Source: Gestion
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