Colombia's right-wing Duque, leftist Petro head to presidential runoff

MAY 27, 2018 / 12:14 AM / UPDATED 27 MINUTES AGO
Helen Murphy, Steven Grattan
5 MIN READ

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Right-winger Ivan Duque, who wants to overhaul a peace deal with Colombia’s Marxist rebels, won Sunday’s first-round presidential election, setting up a runoff next month with leftist Gustavo Petro, who has pledged to take on entrenched elites.

The first election since the peace accord was signed in 2016 with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) now heads for a June 17 runoff to select the successor to President Juan Manuel Santos, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the five-decade-old conflict.

Duque has pledged to alter the terms of the peace deal and jail former rebels for war crimes, while Petro has provoked alarm with pledges to overhaul Colombia’s orthodox economic policy and redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor.

With almost 98 percent of polling stations reporting, Duque led with 39 percent of the vote, as expected, while Petro was a distant second with 25.08 percent.

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