Hernandez leads Colombia’s presidential race, but few know who he really is

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Construction businessman Rodolfo Hernandez surprised half of Colombia on Sunday, May 29, by advancing to the runoff election with a populist strategy centered on an anti-corruption message spread through social networks, something that for many recalls the formula that gave victory in 2016 to former President Donald Trump.

The businessman, also known as the King of Tik Tok, seems to have reached the lead in the race. A poll released Wednesday by radio station La FM indicates that he currently holds 52% of the preferences against his rival, leftist and former guerrilla Gustavo Petro, who has 44%.

The 77-year-old businessman’s rapid rise proves that social media videos that appeal to people’s emotions can be more effective than long speeches picked up by the press or even the delivery of hard-hitting arguments during debates.

However, Hernandez remains a great mystery to most Colombians, many of whom approve of his promises to fight corruption, fix the economy, and end poverty without anyone having a clear idea of how he would do it.

“Of all the presidential proposals, Hernández’s was the most succinct, the one with the least detail,” said Erica Fraga, a senior analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, the research unit of The Economist magazine.

“Among the few things he has said, some of them generate concern, such as the promise to pay rewards for any denunciations made against corruption because promises like that cannot be kept.”

Wielding a message against status quo corruption that evokes the “clean the swamp” slogan used by Trump in his campaign, Hernandez came out of nowhere to take second place in the May 29 presidential election, earning him a spot to compete in the runoff.

The independent candidate from the movement called the League of Anti-Corruption Rulers emerged in the days leading up to the vote, beating former Medellín mayor Federico Gutiérrez and qualifying for the June 19 runoff election, where he will measure himself against Petro, the leftist candidate and former member of the M-19 guerrilla movement.

“Today, we know that there is a firm citizen will to end corruption as a system of government,” he said on May 29 from the kitchen of his home, after the vote’s results were known.

But to his promise to end corruption, the also civil engineer does not seem to fulfill the biblical conditions to throw the first stone: he himself has an open judicial process for that crime.

In 2021, prosecutors accused Hernández of “undue interest” in the Vitalogic case, which took place when he was still mayor of Bucaramanga and involved his son in collecting a millionaire commission.

The accusation that he says he was innocent points to alleged irregularities in a consultancy contract on technologies for waste management at the El Carrasco landfill in Bucaramanga when he was mayor, reported CNN.

The trial for his alleged responsibility in directing the awarding of a contract will begin on July 21, three weeks after the second round of the presidential election, when it will be known whether or not he will be the next president of Colombia.

Raising the slogan of “not lying, not stealing, not betraying [voters], and zero impunity,” Hernández said that if he became president of Colombia, he would donate his salary and give it to the neediest, a measure he had already applied when he was mayor of Bucaramanga, between 2016 and 2019 when he donated his salary for the study of young people.

He has also assured that as president, he will suspend the operation and use of the fleet of airplanes, helicopters, and vehicles destined for the use of the president, vice president, ministers, and First Lady and that he would indefinitely suspend the use of the presidential palace – the private house of the Casa de Nariño – among other measures.

Hernandez spoke in January with U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg, to whom he pointed out that “to end drug trafficking, demand must be ended”. The U.S. is one of the world’s largest consumers of drugs, and he said he agrees with the legalization of drugs. “As long as there are cocaine consumers, the business goes on,” he said recently in an interview.

Sergio Guzman, director of Colombia Risk Analysis, a political risk consultancy based in Bogota, said the two candidates who made it to the second round made it clear that Colombians are very tired of the situation in Colombia and want an extreme version of change.

Given that both candidates represent change, it is up to Hernandez to continue attacking Petro because the former M-19 member “arouses significant fears within the electorate”.

That strategy is clear to improve his chances of defeating his rival. Less obvious is to predict what his government would be like if elected.

He is a stubborn character, said Guzmán, but at the same time, he proved in Bucaramanga to be a competent administrator: he impressively reduced the deficit, supported LGTB causes at the time, and diversified the number of companies that could access public contracts, which is where corruption takes place.

But he also has a huge Achilles heel which is the corruption case brought against him, he added.

Additionally, any initiative he leads would have great resistance in Congress.

“That’s where it will be challenging for Hernandez,” Guzman said. “He only has two representatives in the lower house from his party. He wants a program to reform Congress, but he has no one in Congress. He’s going to have to row against the current very hard.”

With information from El Nuevo Herald