I'm John Batchew with my colleague and friend Evan Ellis of the U.S. Army War College.

Colombia has got a big first round vote coming up in May.

And there is a party representing the former president Uribe,

and there is a party representing or in some way attached to the present,

extremely troubled and compromised President Gustavo Petro.

Now, the first round is not determinative, but it shows who's got the weight at the polls.

And right now, there's reason to believe that for reasons I don't understand,

Gustavo Petro's intentions are winning the support of the Colombian people.

Is this trustworthy of it?

Right now, John, basically it's looking like a three-way race between the person who is the inheritor of Petro's legacy, his far-left historic pact or pacto-historical,

a man by the name of Ivan Sepeda.

Now, in all fairness, Sepeda is kind of Petro 2.0.

He's younger. He's sharper. He's more articulate and perhaps without some of the troubling

alcohol and drug and other odd issues that Petro has. And so, you know, for those very young

Colombians who don't fully remember how bad things were during the, you know, previous era of war,

Sipeda has a certain appeal. And so he's showing up right now at about 44% in the polls.

You have essentially the right side of the vote split between two different candidates.

Paloma Valencia, who if she wins, would be the first woman president of Colombia, a significant accomplishment with the

Democratic Center Party. And Abayardo de la Speria, who's a bit farther to the right, but very, very

charismatic. And so at the end of the day, Cepeda is about 44%. Paloma Valencia is about 20%. And

Abriardo de Les Priya is about 21%. Now, when you go

into this 31st, you know, May 31st, round one, really the question is who gets the number two

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