 Hello, you're watching People's Dispatch and today we're going to be talking about the first round of the elections in Colombia, which got over on Sunday, that's May 29th. In the first round, Gustavo Petro, the historic PAC coalition at Francia Marquez, his vice presidential candidate, together they have about 40% of the vote. The second candidate who came second, a bit of a surprise is Rudolf Hernandez, who got just more than about 28%. Now this means that there will be a second round of elections, which will take place in about June 19th and about 20 days or so. This is really a historic election as far as Colombia is concerned. And to talk more about this, we have Zoe of People's Dispatch. Zoe, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks so much for having me. So Zoe, first of all, first impressions regarding this election, there was a lot of anticipation across the world. People were watching to see what might happen. So what is your first take as the results have come out? Well, as you said, it was a bit of a surprise. The, you know, second place jury of Rolfo Hernandez was not expected by many, most expected that Federico Gutierrez, Fico, who's the favorite of the far right, former president Alvaro Uribe, was going to clinch this spot. There was a lot of momentum behind him, but he did not even get second, not even third, Rolfo Hernandez, who's a 77 year old businessman. His main kind of platform has been about corruption, anti-corruption. He's used a lot of different social forms to spread his message. That being said, he is a very divisive figure just because he wasn't the favorite of the far right. Doesn't mean he's not dangerous. So it's a really interesting result that came out. Petro and Francia, of course, clinched 40% of the vote, which was very impressive, unfortunately, not enough for them to win in the first round elections. And so as a first impression, many people of the progressive camp are expressing concern about what will happen in the second round because many were hoping for first round victory. Now they're going to against this anti-corruption candidate. It's going to be a very, very tough battle from now until the end of June, when the second round will be held. Quite an interesting result. There were also several allegations of electoral fraud. And as we've said on People's Dispatch before, we don't see electoral fraud as part of something that only happens on the voting date, of course, has to do with a structural impeding people from voting. But on the day of, there were registered cases of voters being pressured, different irregularities, over 500 officials that were registered. And so this was, again, not really unexpected, but it's definitely something to keep in account. In the March elections, there were numerous denouncements that were made about the counting process itself about many votes that were disqualified. We're going to see this play out in the coming days. The quick count result is what people are relying on at this point, but the official results will be released in the coming days. So this is kind of the first impressions, first response to this historic electoral process. Right, so in this context, of course, a lot of attention on the Gustavo Petro-Francia Marcus, candidate here, of course. And could you maybe tell us also in terms of what are some of the key aspects, what are some of the key plans of the agenda that have really resonated with voters, because this is the lead at least, first 12%. So it is a remarkable achievement. Definitely. I think the reason their ticket, their campaign, their platform was so appealing to voters is that in the past four years under the presence of Iván Duque, there have been numerous waves of people's mobilization from across sectors. The students were a very strong sector that were on the streets. A lot of informal workers who were hit hard by the economic crisis provoked by the pandemic. The peasants who have been demanding fundamental rights and recognition of their status as peasants in Colombia. And then, of course, the uprising that happened in April, May and June of last year were across the country. Tens of thousands of people were on the streets demanding an end to the neoliberal reforms, primarily the tax reform. And so in many senses, a lot of these people who had taken to the streets in the past four years saw their demands against the government of Iván Duque reflected in the platform of Gustavo Petro and Francia Marquez. These include, on one hand, for example, the easier access to higher education. Colombia has a very restrictive higher education in the country. There's a large student debt industry that has started with a state entity, many students in Colombia now have large amounts of student debt. A lot of them are unable to access the cheaper subsidized private universities, public universities, sorry. And so they have to take out debt with this program. The response of Iván Duque was to create a very selective process where if you had high enough grades, you could get scholarships, but everyone else had to get, for example, large amounts of student debt. Gustavo Petro and Francia Marquez are calling for the ending of the student debt and also making education more accessible. They're calling for land reform to give peasants access to the land. They're calling for the peace agreements signed in 2016 with the Colombian government for these peace agreements to be respected. During the government in Iván Duque, these have been systematically undermined, programs underfunded, demobilized fighters that have been targeted. And so in addition, they want to increase access to public transportation, increase social programs. This was a huge cornerstone of Petro's program when he was mayor of Bogotá. We saw a huge increase in social programs towards vulnerable populations, LGBTQ population, people living in states of homelessness, drug users. He was really active in working with these communities and getting them into a better place, structurally educational programs. And this has been reflected in their platform for the nation. And this is really needed as Colombia has been one of the most hard hit countries by neoliberal policies by the COVID-19 induced economic crisis. You know, millions of people in a state of unemployment in informal sector of labor without access to healthcare. So this platform of theirs really appealed to all of those people who were on the streets, who have been suffering over the past four years and really saw that they needed a change. The slogan of theirs was change in first. There needs to be a change in the country. And that was really what brought them. Right. So in this context, the big question is the other candidate who will be opposing them that is a little for Hernandez, a bit of a wildcard candidate. It seems like his positions seem a bit unclear. He's taken positions across the spectrum, it looks like. So could he give us a bit of a background on who this person is and what really he stands for? Yeah, he's a very interesting figure and maybe one that we're seeing emerge more and more across the political spectrum in the region and across the world. He's sort of one of these anti-establishment candidates that talks a lot about combating corruption, combating the status quo politicians and all that they stand for. He, as I mentioned before, he used TikTok a lot to spread his messages. One of his key policy platforms is recovering the money of the state that's lost from corruption. He also announced a series of reforms of the institutionality of Columbia, reducing, for example, the number of parliamentarians, cutting the amount of ministries, ending some of the offices that exist in the country, such as the High Commissioner for Peace. These are some of his more polemical grammar because he seems to want to cut the public sector, not strengthen it. This is clearly not in the favor of the people. However, for example, he does have some interesting proposals like he wants to reestablish diplomatic relations with Venezuela, continue the peace process with the National Liberation Army, implement the Havana peace agreements. So he is, as you said, a bit of a wild card, but I think looking at who he is and what he has done in the past is really important. He is a businessman. He was the mayor of Bucaramanga, the city in the east of Columbia from 2016 to 2019. He has had some polemics in the past in 2016, which this has been circulating very widely on social media. He said that he was a follower of the great German thinker, Adolf Hitler. He later retracted the statement and apologized, but he did say this on live news. He's mentioned that he thinks women should be in the house. A lot of different things that have really gotten people worried. He said that women can support from the house about his first lady. So there's a lot to be concerned about. Right now, the key concern of progressive sectors in the country is that it doesn't necessarily matter what he stated to be his campaign platform, but the right wing sectors in Columbia are most likely going to unite behind this candidate. They will put in the policy request that they will need to, and they essentially many people think that they're going to unite behind this candidacy in attempt to defeat the progressive ticket, to defeat these progressive proposals for change. And if Rodolfo Hernandez receives support from these sectors, he will need to win because he only got, as you mentioned, 28% of the vote. That's not enough to carry him to a victory. He'll have to make some negotiations. He'll have to concede some of his terms. So even these maybe more progressive proposals that he has, which people have pointed out as somewhat interesting, might even be conceded when he makes these negotiations going into the next round. I think what we've seen leading up to this round of the elections threats a campaign of fear, of hatred, of defamation on social media. This is all going to increase in the coming weeks. Right. And we do know, of course, that even last time Gustavo Petro lost by a very narrow margin. So definitely there is a possibility of a very difficult and controversial next 20 days ahead as far as the campaign is concerned. That's exactly right. I think we're going to see a very similar situation playing out. It's going to be an uphill battle. The far right in Colombia is not used to losing. It has every resource at its disposal, really, to wield this, to create the unity of the right, to impose its will in many different ways. The denouncements of electoral fraud that were officially registered are only a sliver of what has happened on the ground. And so it's very important to make sure to keep watching Colombia to keep seeing what's happening. There's going to be campaigns of defamation, of spreading fake news. And we'll definitely be keeping watch and be following this case. Right. Thank you so much, Zoe. As she said, we'll definitely be following the elections very closely and do follow some of the important outlets from Latin America as well. We should be covering this very closely. See you next time.