Colombia’s election campaigns come to an end amid extreme tensions

Candidates in Colombia’s elections finalized their campaigns on Sunday amid extreme tensions.

Opposition Senator Gustavo Petro, the frontrunner in the race, ended his campaign in the central Bolivar Square in the capital Bogota.

Petro’s main rival, Federico Gutierrez, ended his campaign with a mass gathering in Colombia’s second-largest city Medellin.

According to multiple polls, the two candidates are most likely to make it to run-off elections after the first round on Sunday.

Police authorities were on their highest alert during the final public events before what constitutional expert Rodrigo Uprimny called “the most dangerous elections in the past six decades.”

Tensions reached a new high on Saturday when Petro’s running mate, Francia Marquez, was rushed off stage during a rally in Bogota after she was targeted by a laser from a building some 400 meters away.

The prosecution announced a criminal investigation into the apparent intimidation attempt on Sunday.

Marquez received at least three death threats during the campaign and survived an assassination attempt in 2019.

Petro canceled campaign events in the coffee region earlier this month, claiming that an organized crime ally of Gutierrez had set an assassination plot in motion.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES