- Nineteen prisoners use cutlery to break out of cells at Winchester prison
- France wants progress in Ukraine before Russia returns to G7
- Italy president begins talks to seek way out of government crisis
- Italian PM expected to resign as political chaos deepens
- Russia says US cruise missile test ‘regrettable’
- Kremlin - No date set for Normandy talks on Ukraine despite Macron meeting
- Egypt court hands out 6 death sentences on terror charges
- Putin says Russian nuclear explosion poses no threat
- Russian panel eyes alleged foreign interference in protests
- Gran Canaria wildfire triggers evacuation of thousands of people
- PM Johnson calls on Germany and France to compromise on Brexit
- Sudan's ex-president Bashir arrives at corruption trial
TEHRAN, June 17 - Colombians vote on Sunday in a deeply divisive presidential runoff that pits candidates offering polar opposite views and has stirred fears the winner will upset a fragile peace process or derail the economy.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - Colombians vote on Sunday in a deeply divisive presidential runoff that pits candidates offering polar opposite views and has stirred fears the winner will upset a fragile peace process or derail the economy.
Ivan Duque, the business-friendly protégé of hardline former president Alvaro Uribe, wants to alter a peace deal he deems too lenient on Marxist FARC rebels, while keeping Colombia’s largely orthodox economic model.
His rival, leftist former guerrilla Gustavo Petro, has pledged to take on political elites, redistribute land to the poor and gradually eliminate the need for oil and coal in Latin America’s fourth-largest economy.
“We’re between a rock and a hard place,” said financial planner Juan Jose Mojica, 21. “They’re two extremes that could destroy the development that the country has made over the last years.”
From the sweltering Caribbean coast to the frigid heights of the Andes, some 11,230 polling stations will open at 1300 GMT. Polls close at 2100 GMT and results are expected within hours.
These are the first elections since a 2016 peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which ended their part in a five-decade conflict that has killed more than 220,000 people and displaced millions.
Duque wants to change the accord with tougher punishments for FARC war crimes, while Petro promises to support the existing deal and continue a peace process with the National Liberation Army (ELN) - Colombia’s last active rebel group.
“Duque doesn’t want peace. He wants war to continue and prevent Colombia getting ahead,” said Jorge Andres Sanchez, 31, selling World Cup goods in a Bogota shopping center. “Let’s put it behind us and start again.”
A lot is at stake too for Colombia’s $324 billion economy. Duque has promised to keep investors happy by cutting business taxes, bolstering the oil and coal sectors - top exports - and helping manufacturing.
Petro, a one-time member of the now defunct M19 insurgent group, wants a new economic model that ditches reliance on extractive industries for renewable energy and a land reform that promotes an increase in productive use.
Source:Reuters
Your Comment