On Sunday, centrist, left-wing, and right-wing candidates in Colombia's presidential primaries voted with hopes of triumph to represent their coalitions in the May 31 elections. Colombians, who are also electing senators and Chamber representatives for the next four years in Congress, have the option to vote in three primaries to choose presidential candidates. The largest is the right-wing 'La Gran Consulta por Colombia' with nine aspirants, while the left-wing 'Frente por la Vida' has five names, and the centrist 'Consulta de las Soluciones: Salud, Seguridad y Educación' has only two registered candidates. 'I invite you to give me your support so that the social reforms that are going well continue and we defend them; so that we correct the three pains that afflict us all—health, security, and corruption—and move forward,' expressed former Bogotá Mayor Claudia López of the 'Consulta de las Soluciones: Salud, Seguridad y Educación' after voting in Bogotá. According to the National Registry, which organizes the elections, 41,287,084 Colombians are eligible to vote today at 125,259 polling stations set up in 13,746 posts across the country. Presidential candidate Roy Barreras shows his ballot in the primaries this Sunday in Cali (Colombia). 'And I anticipate one thing, I said it 10 months ago, the next president of Colombia will be a progressive, will be from the center-left,' highlighted the former senator. Photo EFE. The article 'Candidates in Colombian presidential primaries vote with hope for victory' was first published in La Verdad Panamá. EFE/Ernesto Guzmán. The memory of Miguel Uribe. The coalition that garnered the most attention during the campaign was 'La Gran Consulta por Colombia,' which includes nine right-wing opponents aspiring to the presidency: Mauricio Cárdenas, David Luna, Vicky Dávila, Juan Manuel Galán, Paloma Valencia, Juan Carlos Pinzón, Aníbal Gaviria, Enrique Peñalosa, and Juan Daniel Oviedo. 'I believe 'La Gran Consulta por Colombia' will do very well because it shows that Colombia can start thinking about walking together, that we don't have to focus on our differences but seek an agreement with all popular sectors to build the country that Colombians deserve, a country without violence, a country at peace, a country with opportunities,' said Senator Paloma Valencia of the uribist Democratic Center party. Valencia, who is the favorite to win today's primary, voted in the afternoon because she was first in the locality of Rionegro, in the department of Antioquia (northwest), accompanying former President Álvaro Uribe, founder and leader of her party, in his vote. In turn, Peñalosa, who was mayor of Bogotá in the periods 1998-2000 and 2016-2019, remembered the assassinated senator and right-wing presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay, who died on August 11, two months after being seriously wounded in an attack in Bogotá. 'I cannot help but think of Miguel Uribe, my friend who should be here today. It hurts me infinitely and I pay tribute to him, and it is a reminder to citizens of the importance of defending democracy from the violent at this very important moment in our history,' added Peñalosa before voting. Presidential candidate Enrique Peñalosa shows his ballot in the primaries this Sunday in Bogotá (Colombia). EFE/Carlos Ortega. An option for progress. The 'Frente por la Vida' primary of the left was blurred after the National Electoral Council (CNE) excluded ruling party Senator Iván Cepeda, the favorite in the polls for the final victory in the race for the presidency. His exclusion left that primary without major names from the left and in the hands of two politicians new to that sector, former Senator Roy Barreras and former Medellín Mayor Daniel Quintero, accompanied by three others almost unknown: Héctor Elías Pineda, Edison Lucio Torres, and Martha Viviana Bernal. Barreras, who was one of President Gustavo Petro's allies in the 2022 elections, voted in his native Cali, the main city in the southwest of the country, and asked citizens for their support because it is 'an option in which we can all progress.' 'We want change, but a stable, institutional, serious change, without radicalism, without extremism, without sectarianism.'
