People in Colombia vote in presidential election

Colombians are going to the polling stations today in the second round of the Presidential Election, to choose between the traditional right and the radical left.

By James Blears

Politically, Ivan Duque of the right wing Democratic Center Party and Gustavo Petro of the leftist Humane Colombia Movement, are poles apart. Duque who a protogee of former President Alvaro Uribe, staunchly advocates boosting the oil and mining industries, but controversially, he wants to tinker with the 2016 Peace Accord, which ended more than half a century of Civil War. He thinks it`s too lenient and much too soft, hinting at jailing some of the leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Petro a former urban guerrilla, who`s an ex Mayor of Bogota, wants to explore alternative sources of energy and re-distribute land, to diversify away from what he terms the feudal oligarchy. He`s pledging to leave the Peace Agreement alone.

Duque goes into this round twenty points ahead in the opinion polls. Petro is the first leftist Presidential candidate to ever get this far. Now...it`s decison time.

Listen to James Blears' report