Far-right Senator Paloma Valencia won Colombia’s center-right primary with 3.2 million votes on Sunday, securing significant support for her presidential bid.
Valencia, a disciple of former President Alvaro Uribe, received 3.2 million of the 5.9 million votes cast in the “Great Consultation” that was held on the same day as the congressional elections.
Ahead of the primary, all nine candidates vowed to put their weight behind the winner of the multipartite vote.
According to all polls, this support is more than necessary as the main challenger of the leftist frontrunner, Ivan Cepeda, is Abelardo de la Espriella, a former associate of paramilitary organization AUC.
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De la Espriella has maintained his outsider position by refusing to team up with establish political parties.
The former AUC associate’s backer, the National Salvation party, only barely made it past the 3% threshold in Sunday’s Senate election despite the tacit support of US deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau.
Valencia can count of the support of not just far-right fringe figures and US Government officials, but established political parties and politicians with powerful machineries.
This could help her defeat De la Espriella in the first round of the election in May and secure a place in the run-off election and defeat Cepeda in June.
So far, no poll has given Valencia a serious chance in the second round, but the support of her former competitors could change all this.
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