BOGOTá – Colombians began voting Sunday in a presidential election that will determine the nation’s response to spiraling violence by drug-running guerrillas, either staying left and opting for dialogue or tacking right towards all-out war.
Pre-election polls showed left-wing senator Ivan Cepeda riding high on strong support for combative outgoing President Gustavo Petro, but he faces a challenge from hard-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella and conservative senator Paloma Valencia.
If, as expected, no candidate wins an outright majority on Sunday, a run-off between the two poll-toppers will be held on June 21.
The election is widely seen as a referendum on the “total peace” strategy of Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing president, who tried but failed to convince guerrilla groups that rejected a landmark 2016 peace deal to finally lay down arms.
Despite his absence from the ballot, “the campaign revolves around Petro,” said Yann Basset, political science professor at Bogota’s University of Rosario. “He’s at the center of all the discussions.”
Car bombs, attack drones and the assassination of a presidential candidate pockmarked the polarizing leader’s four-year term, and experts say guerrillas used the peace talks to fortify their positions.
Whoever replaces Petro will have to reckon with an alphabet soup of criminal groups engaging in drug trafficking, illegal mining and extortion.
But joblessness has fallen and the government has hiked the minimum wage, buffeting Petro’s protege Cepeda.
The son of a communist leader who was assassinated by paramilitaries, Cepeda was an architect of the 2016 peace deal that saw the Marxist rebel army FARC disband.
He has pledged to continue pursuing “total peace” and extend social programs in a deeply unequal society.
“Today power is on our hands, that of the people. We don’t want the return of the oligarchy and the bourgeoisie,” Jose Cruz, a 60-year-old former left-wing militant said.
– Right-wing rivals –
Dialogue with guerrillas, however, is not to the taste of Cepeda’s right-wing rivals, who are betting on security fears to shunt the left out of office.
Polls suggest Cepeda could face millionaire lawyer De la Espriella in the run-off.
De la Espriella, dubbed “The Tiger” and an admirer of US President Donald Trump, wants to take the fight to armed groups in the air, on land and at sea — echoing the hard-on-crime rhetoric that has propelled a wave of recent right-wing wins in Latin America.
“What De la Espriella wants is to put the house in order,” Wilmer Bolivar, a 47-year-old ex-soldier, told AFP.
Conservative Senator Paloma Valencia, a close ally of kingmaker and former president Alvaro Uribe, favors the same militarized approach.
“We are going to put an end to ‘total peace’ in order to impose total security,” she declared on the campaign trail.
– Spooked voters –
Despite heightened fears of bloodshed, election day itself is expected to remain calm.
“Even criminal organizations unilaterally declare a ceasefire before the elections so that they can proceed peacefully,” said Judge Alvaro Echeverry of the National Electoral Council.
Eight hours of voting will end at 4:00 pm (2100 GMT), with results expected by around 6:00 pm (2300 GMT).
The government has deployed 408,000 law enforcement officers to ensure security.
Colombia remains the world’s largest cocaine producer, and the drug trade has much to answer for the highest levels of violence in a decade.
Last year’s killing of right-wing candidate Miguel Uribe, blamed on a leftist guerrilla group, has left many Colombians nervous about a return to the bad old days.
In late April, a bomb on a highway in the southwestern Cauca region killed 21 people, making it the deadliest attack against civilians in recent decades. The group responsible later claimed a “tactical error.”
The next president needs to provide “some peace of mind, some peace, because the way things are, we’re very anxious. There’s a lot, a lot of conflict,” said Maria Eugenia Motato, a 57-year-old housewife in Suarez, Cauca.