Former Defense Minister and Partido de la U presidential candidate, Juan Manuel Santos, won a resounding victory in Colombia’s second-round election yesterday against former Bogotá Mayor Antanas Mockus, winning 67 percent of the vote, compared to Mockus’s 27.6 percent, with a total of 9 million ballots cast.
“The time has come for national unity, the time has come for harmony, the time has come for us to work together for the prosperity of Colombia,” Santos declared during his victory speech.
The results underscore Colombian voters’ desire for a continuation of the policies of the administration of President Álvaro Uribe, whose government has been widely credited with achieving sustained economic growth and major security gains against guerilla groups. What lie ahead, according to Marcela Prieto of the Bogotá-based Instituto de Ciencias Politicas, are challenges of poverty and unemployment which remain among the highest in Latin America.
