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This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I\u2019m Amy Goodman.
\nWe end today\u2019s show in Colombia, where the right-wing, Trump-backed candidate Abelardo de la Espriella has clinched a narrow victory in Sunday\u2019s runoff presidential election, defeating the leftist Senator Iv\u00e1n Cepeda. An initial ballot count shows de la Espriella received about 49.7% of the vote, while Cepeda, who\u2019s an ally of current Colombian President Gustavo Petro, trailed by only some quarter of a million votes at 48.7%. The results must still be verified with a final review of the ballots.
\nThousands of people reportedly took to the streets of Bogot\u00e1 and Cali Sunday night, some denouncing U.S. meddling in the election. Cepeda spoke last night, called on Colombia election officials to scrutinize the initial results during the ballot verification process. He had this message for his supporters.<\/p>\n
IV\u00c1N CEPEDA: (translated) We extend our most sincere, profound and heartfelt appreciation and gratitude to the 12.7 million Colombians whose support at the polls reinforces our conviction that profound democratic social change in Colombian society is entirely possible.<\/p>\n
AMY GOODMAN: Iv\u00e1n Cepeda is a prominent human rights defender who had vowed to continue Petro\u2019s progressive agenda and to negotiate peace with Colombia\u2019s armed groups. His father was assassinated by right-wing, U.S.-backed paramilitary groups in 1994.
\nIn contrast, de la Espriella is a millionaire businessman and lawyer who ran a fearmongering, tough-on-crime campaign; has promised to build mega-prisons, inspired by El Salvador\u2019s authoritarian President Nayib Bukele; to bomb \u201cnarcoterrorist camps,\u201d quote-unquote; and to abandon Petro\u2019s peace efforts.
\nDe la Espriella\u2019s reported victory is also a win for U.S. President Trump and his administration, as his administration intervenes across Latin America, waging an intensifying so-called war on drugs, in which even Colombia\u2019s current President Petro has been a target of, after he faced false accusations and threats from Trump. Following news of de la Espriella\u2019s victory, Trump wrote on social media, \u201cHe Won, BIG!\u201d unquote. Despite threatening to, quote, \u201cdisembowel the left\u201d throughout his campaign, de la Espriella shifted his tone last night while speaking in Colombia.<\/p>\n
PRESIDENT-ELECT ABELARDO DE LA ESPRIELLA: (translated) I will govern for all Colombians, for those who voted for me and for those who chose another candidate. There will be no winners or losers. There will be no reprisals, no persecution, because in a democracy, there are no irreconcilable enemies. There are compatriots who think differently.<\/p>\n
AMY GOODMAN: De la Espriella refers to himself as \u201cThe Tiger.\u201d He\u2019s a lawyer and political newcomer. This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I\u2019m Amy Goodman. We end today\u2019s show in Colombia, where the right-wing, Trump-backed candidate Abelardo de la Espriella has clinched a narrow victory in Sunday\u2019s runoff presidential election, defeating the leftist Senator Iv\u00e1n Cepeda. An initial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[677],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daiilynews.cu.ma\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nFor more, we go to Cali, Colombia, where we\u2019re joined by Manuel Rozental, longtime Colombian physician and activist. He\u2019s been exiled several times for his political activities. Dr. Rozental is part of the group Pueblos en Camino, or People on the Path.
\nManuel, protests have taken place in Cali. Please describe what\u2019s happening on the ground and how Colombians are responding to the election news.
\nDR. MANUEL ROZENTAL: Well, thank you, Amy.
\nNow the situation is tense, but it\u2019s also calm. And it\u2019s calm because of the speech, part of which you presented, of Iv\u00e1n Cepeda last night, calling for calm and\/or \u2014\u00a0so, there were some peaceful mobilizations yesterday. But the situation is tense, has been very tense, but it\u2019s calm now, and we have to see what happens. Of course, most of us, me included, feel a tremendous hangover after this result.
\nBut let me tell you, after your introduction, what this election is about, was about, and it\u2019s beyond Colombia. It\u2019s from Colombia. Two projects that are playing, confronting themselves through the electoral process from Colombia, but not only in Colombia, one represented by Iv\u00e1n Cepeda: social reforms, human rights, progressive government, justice and the fight against corruption and crime and for peace, the most decent candidate you can find, with a transparent trajectory. On the other hand, de la Espriella clearly represents a criminal approach to politics: lying, propaganda, coordination and collusion with criminal narcotrafficking, restriction of rights, and money laundering.
\nAnd how these two projects confront each other electorally, and how the criminal project is winning, the context of this, of course, is what you mentioned, a link between local to regional to national mafias, where drug trafficking, legal and illegal control of territories and resources, are producing wealth and transferring it to the north, that in coordination with the Monroe Doctrine, the Shield of the Americas and the U.S. project linked to drug trafficking, with the pretext of attacking it while bombing boats in the Caribbean and so on. So, this project is now labeled as an outsider project. It\u2019s a mafia-type project, criminal project from the ground up, taking over a new state and then defeating a progressive, institutional, state-based democratic process.
\nAMY GOODMAN: Manuel, we just have less than a minute. What does this mean for the peace process?
\nDR. MANUEL ROZENTAL: It\u2019s a horrendous perspective. We expect to have military operations and a U.S. intervention within the country. We expect to have human rights abuses. We expect to have militarization. And it\u2019s all for the extraction of resources and the link of drug trafficking to the U.S. government, U.S. interests and global mafia.
\nAMY GOODMAN: Manuel Rozental, we\u2019re going to continue the discussion and post online at democracynow.org and also have a conversation in Spanish, and we\u2019ll post it online. Manuel Rozental is a longtime Colombian physician and activist, exiled several times, part of Pueblos en Camino, or People on the Path.
\nThat does it for our show. Tomorrow, June 23rd, at 7:30, the film about Democracy Now!, Steal This Story, Please!, will be playing at the IFC here in New York City. It will be \u2014\u00a0there will be a Q&A after. I\u2019ll be with the directors, Carl Deal and Tia Lessin. The moderator will be Elliot Page. You can check our website at democracynow.org. That does it for our show. I\u2019m Amy Goodman, for another edition of Democracy Now!
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