Colombians vote in presidential runoff, electorate divided

A deeply divided electorate will choose Colombia’s next president in a runoff on Sunday that pits a progressive against a conservative outsider, with both candidates tapping into fears of a renewed internal conflict in the country.

Voters will choose between businessman and lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella and Ivan Cepeda, a lawmaker and heir to the political movement of outgoing President Gustavo Petro, the nation’s first leftist leader. The two defeated nine other contenders in a May 31 vote. Both are pitching strategies that they say will prevent the South American country from experiencing the nonstop merciless violence, such as car bombs, kidnappings, disappearances and forced displacements that Colombians lived with in previous decades.

De la Espriella is proposing a heavy-handed approach that has earned him the endorsement of US President Donald Trump.  Cepeda is promising to continue Petro’s efforts, including attempts at establishing dialogue with multiple illegal armed groups, even though those efforts have largely failed.

The two candidates also are offering differing solutions for the country’s struggling health system, ballooning public debt and entrenched corruption.

“Right now, what worries me is the polarisation that exists between us: there are two very extreme sides, and the violence is concerning,” John Manrique, a lawyer in the capital, Bogota, said as he walked his dog.

“What I hope is that people accept who won,” he added. “Let’s accept it, regardless of the side, and try to reach a social consensus. … Let’s not go out and fight.”

In the first round, Cepeda earned 41 per cent of the vote, while de la Espriella garnered 44 per cent, according to official results. Petro, without evidence, sowed doubts in the results after Cepeda, who had consistently lead polls ahead of the May vote, did not win outright and even finished behind de la Espriella. Fighting between rebel groups plagues the nation.

The election comes 10 years after Colombia signed a historic peace pact with guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, that had offered hope to break the nation’s vicious cycle of fighting between rebel groups and the government.