Until this Sunday, May 24, the candidates competing for the presidency of Colombia will be able to go out to public squares to present their ideas and programs, and try to gather the last votes through the magnetism of their live speeches. That deadline marks the final stretch of the campaigns, since the following Sunday, May 31, the elections will take place.
That means that in these last three days the candidates will intensify their tours through different parts of the country, preferably the most important urban centers that can tip the balance in their favor. But they have a higher objective: to convince the large mass of undecided voters who, according to specialists, will be the ones to determine the course of the electoral contest.
In Barranquilla, at different moments
The three leaders in the polls, Iván Cepeda, Abelardo de la Espriella, and Paloma Valencia, will have different routes, but they will arrive at different moments this weekend in Barranquilla, which indicates the importance the capital of Atlántico holds for candidates in these elections.
Although Cepeda’s main closing event is scheduled for this Friday, May 22, at Plaza de Bolívar in Bogotá, where he will be accompanied by his vice-presidential running mate, senator Aida Quilcué, it emerged that the definitive event will take place at the Par Vial on Carrera 50, in Barranquilla, at the request of labor unions in Atlántico.
As is customary in his rallies, Cepeda will be accompanied by social, union, and Indigenous sectors, with participation from labor unions in Atlántico and grassroots organizations linked to the Historic Pact. It may be the last opportunity to demonstrate his ability to mobilize supporters in the Caribbean region, always key in presidential elections.
With a different route, but always with Barranquilla in sight, De la Espriella will be this Saturday together with his vice-presidential running mate, José Manuel Restrepo, at the esplanade of the Crystal Pavilion of that city’s River Boardwalk, and on Sunday, May 24, the campaign of the candidate from the Firmes por la Patria movement will move to Medellín, where the final closing event will take place at the La Macarena Bullring.
In the case of Paloma Valencia, she will first carry out an exhausting tour through Neiva, different municipalities of Antioquia, and afterward Barranquilla, this Friday, May 22, at Plaza de la Paz, starting at 4:00 p.m. But she will end her public events in Bogotá on Sunday.
What Barranquilla means for the candidates
The holding of these political events places Barranquilla at the center of the presidential dispute and positions it as a “strategic plaza” because it “functions as the gateway to the Caribbean” by concentrating the urban vote and strong political structures, professor and researcher Alejandro Blanco Zúñiga told El Heraldo.
“In a close election, the Caribbean can become a decisive territory not necessarily because it defines the presidency by itself, but because it can tilt margins, consolidate advantages, or open the path toward a second round,” the academic added in the same outlet.
For Blanco Zúñiga, candidates De la Espriella, Valencia, and Cepeda represent three political bets and their presence in Barranquilla in the final stretch of the presidential race generates impacts on local dynamics.
“On the one hand, Cepeda seeks to show that the Historic Pact retains strength in the Caribbean and that it can mobilize different social sectors such as unions or the student movement,” he told the Barranquilla newspaper. “De la Espriella is trying to turn his regional origin and his security discourse into a demonstration of political strength, while Valencia needs to compete for the right-wing and center-right vote so as not to leave that space entirely to De la Espriella.”
“In that sense, the agreements or alliances they manage to build with the local representation of Cambio Radical are very important, since this party has a significant electoral accumulation,” he mentioned.
Immediately afterward, he noted that from the ruling coalition — which is promoting Cepeda’s candidacy — this has been envisioned not only as an opportunity to strengthen and expand the vote obtained in congressional elections, but also to project and strengthen the political capital with which that political group would arrive at next year’s local elections.