He is the outsider, the anti-system, a millionaire businessman who did not want to make alliances with any political party and had as his only campaign message the frontal fight against the corrupt.
He did not go to the presidential debates because he said that the country is not fixed by arguing between candidates and he preferred to do his own Facebook Live at the same time that his contenders discussed government programs. He also did not want money from others to pay for his electoral campaign, he financed it out of his own pocket and put the emphasis on funny and effective messages on TikTok, the social network with which he reached millions of citizens who did not know him.
At 77 years old, Rodolfo Hernández was convinced that he could be president in the same way in which he was elected, in 2015, mayor of Bucaramanga, capital of the department of Santander, with simple and direct messages against the corrupt and the bureaucracy, which he understands all the world. He began by giving up his salary as the highest councilor in the city, because, he said, he was already rich, just as he will do with the president’s salary if he expires on June 19.
He is so far removed from traditional politics that not even in these elections did he have electoral witnesses, like the rest of the candidates. He was the only one who believed at all times in the cleanliness of the counting process of the National Registry and that the citizens themselves would defend their votes.
A civil engineer, he was born in Piedecuesta, a town just fourteen kilometers from the city that he would later govern. Married and the father of four children, he amassed his fortune as a builder of affordable housing in the 1990s. He estimates that he has about a hundred million dollars, most of it invested in lots. In 2004 the ELN kidnapped her daughter Juliana, they demanded a high price for her freedom, but then they stopped having contact and the girl was never heard from again. Despite the tragedy, Hernández has assured that he is willing to negotiate a peace process with that guerrilla.
He said in an interview that the presidential inauguration ceremony would take place in a small town and only his 97-year-old mother, who criticizes him for getting into the stormy world of politics, and the rest of his family would attend. No paraphernalia that involves wasting public money. He will do the same with the official cars and the palace advisers. He will only leave the essential ones because his obsession is to reduce the operating expenses of an insatiable and ineffective State that does not solve the needs of the poor.
A strong-willed man with a very bad temper, he was suspended for three months as mayor for slapping a former councilman in the face when they were having a heated argument. The image of the attack went viral on social networks but did not detract from its popularity, nor did a conversation with a client who yells all kinds of insults at him and threatens to shoot him for being a scoundrel. In a country riddled with corruption, many common people applaud the fact that he speaks without mincing words and apologizes if he goes overboard if someone gets on his nerves.
Hernández finished his term in the city council with 84% popularity and hopes to repeat the success at the head of Colombia. He has already noticed that he goes to bed at seven in the afternoon (in Colombia it is already dark at that time) and gets up at 4 to start work.
Irreverent, authoritarian, determined and a good executor, Rodolfo Hernández promises to govern with an emphasis on the poorest. He does not have a parliamentary group or a marked ideology or team, he chose his vice president for her Curriculum vitae and has Ingrid Betancourt, who resigned her candidacy to support him, for some position in her cabinet. Part of his voters gave him their vote because they fear Gustavo Petro in Casa Nariño and are convinced that he is the only one who can defeat him at the polls.
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