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Candidates separated by just a few percentage points after 1st round of voting
Colombian right-wing outsider Abelardo de la Espriella is set to compete in a run-off election this month for president against leftist Sen. Ivan Cepeda, according to voting results Sunday from the first-round election.
The two men were close in vote tallies as of Monday morning. De la Espriella received 43.7 per cent of the votes and Cepeda held just under 41 per cent in the race to succeed Gustavo Petro, The 670,000-vote difference suggests a tough second round for Cepeda, particularly after the third-place finisher endorsed De La Espriella.
De la Espriella, a lawyer who has never held elected office, has sought to portray himself as a tough-on-crime supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump, and has drawn comparisons with El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele over his style and policy proposals.
“I am ready to fight the final battle. I am ready for a second round in which this miraculous homeland and its supporters will prevail,” he said Sunday evening from a stage set up on a large boat on the Magdalena River in Barranquilla, where he maintains a residence.
De La Espriella, 47, his wife and four young children also have homes in Miami and Italy.
Portraying himself as an outsider free from political baggage, de la Espriella has proposed a tough offensive against illegal armed groups, the construction of 10 mega-prisons, and poverty reduction through better education, health care and housing for the poorest.
Cepeda, a 63-year-old lawmaker and son of a murdered communist leader, led some opinion polls ahead of the first round, but surveys have suggested he will face a much tougher contest now that right-leaning voters no longer have multiple options.
Paloma Valencia, a senator backed by former president Alvaro Uribe, had until recently been the leading right-wing candidate in the race, but she notched under seven per cent of votes. She has thrown her support behind de La Espriella, as has Uribe.
Cepeda has promised to pursue peace with illegal armed groups through negotiations, an approach that has brought little progress under Petro.
Cepeda also plans to deepen reforms meant to reduce inequality and poverty, including by raising taxes on high-income earners, granting one million hectares to victims of the country’s six-decade internal conflict and expanding health-care coverage.
The two candidates inveighed against one another in comments on Sunday night, with de La Espriella referring to Cepeda as Petro’s puppet, while Cepeda called his rival a “mafia fascist” and critiqued his history as a defence lawyer.
De la Espriella has legally represented controversial figures, including Alex Saab, a minister in Nicolas Maduro’s government in Venezuela. Saab is facing U.S. charges of money laundering. — Thomson Reuters
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Credit belongs to: www.cbc.ca
