How a former guerrilla is becoming unbeatable in Colombia's election race

[Judi Lynn]

by Adriaan Alsema April 26, 2021

Colombia’s security forces have been fighting guerrillas for more than 60 years, but may want to prepare for the possibility that a former guerrilla will become their commander-in-chief.

The latest poll did not just confirm others that put opposition Senator Gustavo Petro in the lead of the 2022 election race, but indicated that the former member of the M-19 rebel group may be unbeatable.

According to pollster Invamer, the progressive candidate has taken such a lead that if elections were held tomorrow, no candidate would stand a chance against Petro.

Ahead of the first round, the progressive candidate would enjoy more than twice the support of the runner up, “extreme centrist” Sergio Fajardo.

More:
https://colombiareports.com/how-a-former-guerrilla-is-becoming-unbeatable-in-colombias-presidential-elections-race/

[Shell_Seas]

1. What is an "extreme centrist?"

[Judi Lynn]

2. Not too sure what their implication is, but here's an article they wrote on the same guy:

Can Sergio Fajardo teach Colombia that negligence can be as harmful as corruption?
by Adriaan Alsema December 14, 2020

Charges against presidential hopeful Sergio Fajardo indicate how negligence in Colombia’s politics may be as damaging as corruption.

Fajardo, a former mayor of Medellin and a former governor, received global recognition as mayor of Medellin, a position he held between 2003 and 2007.

Fajardo’s Medellin façades

Fajardo gladly took credit for the city’s dropping homicide rate and named the crown piece of his library program after King Carlos of Spain, who inaugurated the building.

The man who deserved the credit for the dropping homicide rate was crime lord “Don Berna,” whose Oficina de Envigado made murder victims disappear so they wouldn’t appear in the statistics.

Fajardo’s failure to challenge Berna’s criminal rule got a name, “donbernability,” and fell apart after Fajardo had already left office and the crime lord’s extradition sparked a gang war.

It wasn’t until 2019 that the war crimes tribunal began investigating the disappearances and found that Medellin may have become Latin America’s largest mass grave between 2002 and 2012.

By then, Fajardo’s former security secretary, Gustavo Villegas, was in prison for his ties to “La Oficina.”

Before, multiple social scientists had visited Medellin to study the city’s self-proclaimed transformation, but found the city hall never maintained statistics that could have measured the impact of policies.

More:
https://colombiareports.com/can-sergio-fajardo-teach-colombia-that-negligence-can-be-as-harmful-as-corruption/

(I'm glad I looked it up, as the article tells me far more than I knew about Fajardo. Colombia can't afford to have him in office again.)