Populist millionaire faces ex-rebel for Colombia presidency

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Leftist Sen. Gustavo Petro celebrated his first-round lead in Colombia’s presidential election in the way most politicians would: in a conference room packed with hundreds of supporters as confetti rained down upon him.

The man he’ll meet in a June 19 runoff had a different approach.

Rodolfo Hernandez sat at his home kitchen table and spoke to his followers for five minutes on Facebook Live.

“Today the country that does not want to continue with the same politicians, that does not want the same people who have brought us to our current situation, has won,” he declared.

The 77-year-old populist rode a wave of disgust at the country’s condition to what until just weeks ago would have been a shocking place in the runoff, surging late in the campaign past more conventional candidates.

He ran an austere campaign — unaffiliated with any major party — that was waged mostly on social media with a message that centered on reducing corruption and cutting wasteful government spending,

He is now positioned to mount a serious challenge to Petro —a former rebel who himself has long been seen as a political insurgent and who would be Colombia’s first leftist leader if elected. Petro now, to some eyes at least seems like the more conventional candidate — even if he still frightens much of the country’s conservative establishment..

Hernandez got 28% of the vote in the six-candidate field on Sunday while Petro, as polls had projected, got 40%.

Hernandez is a self-made millionaire who got rich in real estate after growing up on a small farm. He says he has paid for his campaign with his own savings rather than depending on donations.

Some in Colombia compare him to former U.S. President Donald Trump and describe him as a right-wing populist. But others say the analogy is deceptive.

“This is not a hard right-wing candidate” said Will Freeman, a Princeton University scholar who specializes in Latin American politics and met with Hernandez in February for a lengthy interview. “One of the big things he talks about is poverty, inequality and hunger. When I spoke with him he said several times that he was dismayed by the idea that people are born into poverty in Colombia and don’t have opportunities to get out of that track.”

(AP Video/Marko Alvarez)

Hernandez has also said he is in favor of peace negotiations with the National Liberation Army — the last remaining sizable rebel group — which kidnapped and killed his daughter in 2004.

Freeman said that during the interview, Hernandez also expressed admiration for two other Latin American leaders: Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele — both often seen as heavy-handed populists but neither of them coming from a right wing background.

Hernandez got his start in politics in 2016, by running for mayor of his hometown of Bucaramanga. He has said he was tired of complaining about corrupt local officials and was convinced by his brother, who is a philosopher, to try to change how the city was run himself.

Leading a movement called “Logic, Ethics and Aesthetics” — which had the pi symbol as its logo — Hernandez won, and…