Colombia’s presidential elections could not be tighter or more polarised. As widely predicted by the polls, the first round held on 25 May produced no outright winner with President Juan Manuel Santos and his main opponent, Oscar Iván Zuluaga of the far right Centro Democrático (CD), evenly splitting the lion’s share of the vote. The two will now square off in what is certain to be a hard-fought second round run-off on 15 June. Predicting the outcome of the contest is an extremely difficult task; but if the last few weeks are anything to go by, it promises to be a bitter battle between two camps that are becoming increasingly hostile to each other and have succeeded in dividing the electorate on what has become the main campaign focus: how to deal with the country’s biggest guerrilla group, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc).End of preview - This article contains approximately 1963 words.
Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article
Not a Subscriber?
Choose from one of the following options