Meet Rodolfo Hernández, the “Colombian Trump” who will run for president

Colombian presidential candidate Rodolfo Hernández, 77, calls himself “Engineer Rodolfo Hernández,” as if that were part of his first name. Those who don’t know him may have an idea of ​​him as the Colombian “Donald Trump”, who, with his own fortune and presenting himself as an outsider, seeks to win this Sunday’s elections (29).

Rodolfo Hernández Suárez was born in Piedecuesta in 1945 and is a businessman from the Santander region in northeastern Colombia.

He worked as a construction entrepreneur, a branch in which he amassed his fortune. After a controversial but popular stint as mayor of Bucaramanga, a city of about 500,000 in northeastern Colombia, he decided to jump as a presidential candidate with a campaign based on fighting corruption.

Beginning and early years in politics

Coming from a working-class family, Hernández made a fortune in affordable housing in the 1990s, when Colombia was in a construction crisis.

At that time, “in the face of a possible insolvency to pay the credits acquired”, says his website, he created the 100 Plan, in which families could buy a house in 100 monthly installments paid directly to him. Hernández’s company was a construction company and a bank at the same time, earning interest on its own financing.

Although in 1992 he had already been a councilor for the municipality of Piedecuesta, in Santander, he never assumed the title of lobbyist. “[Ele] He only sent a letter resigning from office at the end of 1992, when his mandate expired”, reported the local press. THE CNN requested a comment from its press team regarding this situation, but did not receive a response.

After decades in the construction business, Hernández has registered as an independent candidate with 1 million signatures. With his civic movement Logic, Ethics and Aesthetics, and after promising millions of homes to the most vulnerable families, he won mayor in 2016 with just over 77,000 votes. Only a few thousand more than an opponent of the Liberal Party.

“People believed him and he won by just 5,000 votes against a former liberal mayor who was 20 points ahead in previous polls,” commented Julio Acelas, political analyst and director of the Santander Citizen Observatory in Bucaramanga.

However, several scandals led him to the Colombian Attorney General’s Office, which imposed several disciplinary sanctions on him. According to reports, in 2019 Hernández had 34 disciplinary investigations open. THE CNN contacted this entity to request information on this, but has not received a response to date.

In the same year, alleging political persecution after the prosecutor sanctioned Hernández’s alleged improper participation in politics, he resigned as mayor of Bucaramanga.

Now he seeks to reach the presidency of Colombia by convincing his followers that he is the redeemer the country needs and that under his rule corruption and the theft of public money will end.

outsider candidate

Rodolfo Hernández expresses himself in a very colloquial and often rude way. It is informal and seeks to appear authentic: he did a virtual interview with CNN in spanish in pajamas. Those who criticize him say that he likes to appear, to show himself. “He is a figurative narcissist,” adds Julio Acelas.

“He created here what in political theory has been called alternative facts: he makes it look like he was a successful ruler – which he wasn’t – who transformed the city. A fiction is created very well along the lines of [Donald] Trump, believing himself to be a ‘redeeming leader’”, adds the analyst.

“Engenheiro Rodolfo” lives up to the reputation that Santander residents have: firm character, direct and blunt speech, with a strong and blunt tone. During the campaign, he accused his critics of being “scoundrels”, “thieves” and even drug addicts.

In November 2018, he physically assaulted an opposition councilor in front of cameras. At the time, the then mayor of Bucaramanga accused councilor Jhon Claro of not letting him speak, of having a “dictatorship”. He called him a “scoundrel” and accused him of being in cahoots with corrupt people. Then Hernández got up from his chair and slapped him on the head with various insults.

It was a “human error caused”, he later apologized, when the Attorney General’s Office suspended him for three months and a judge, in the second instance, forced him to pay a fine of about 95 million pesos (about 95 million pesos). $23,000).

On another occasion, he called the official Bucaramanga Fire Department “bellied”, “fat and lazy”. One of them sued the former mayor for 327 million pesos (about $80,000).

And in another of his polemics, he said publicly that he was an admirer of Adolf Hitler. “I am a follower of a great German thinker. His name is Adolf Hitler”, he said in 2016, in an interview with the radio network “RCN”.

Years later, in 2021, when he was already starting his career in the presidency, Hernández said he was wrong and that he had a lapse in quoting Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party responsible for the Holocaust, and that he wanted to quote Albert Einstein.

“What he created is a media fiction that he is an outsider because he comes from outside politics. He is a right-wing populist: he also plays at being like Donald Trump,” says Acelas, who points to his wealth and incendiary rhetoric to compare him to the former president of the United States.

Investigated for alleged corruption

Contrary to his anti-corruption banner, Hernández has an alleged corruption scandal behind him, in which he has pleaded not guilty.

This is the case with Vitalogic, in which the Public Ministry formally accused it in May 2021 of signing a consultancy contract with alleged irregularities to “implement new waste management technologies at the El Carrasco landfill”. Hernández insists that “no weight [moeda oficial da Colômbia]” was stolen.

In April 2022, at the trial’s pre-trial hearing, Hernández did not accept accusations such as fraudulent misrepresentation, a contract without complying with legal requirements and an undue interest in entering into contracts, according to the Public Ministry. The case is still ongoing.

“This is Rodolfo: contradictory to his slogan of not lying. And we’ve already found many lies about him. The issue of corruption devalued him a lot with the Vitalogic phenomenon”, highlights Julio Acelas.

A confused political spectrum

Hernández is difficult to place on a political spectrum. But his political trajectory already has it, according to a Yanhass poll published on May 10, with 12% of voting intentions among a pack of seven candidates, just behind the great leaders of the dispute, Gustavo Petro and Federico “Fico” Gutiérrez, and only one point behind the blank vote.

Hernández was outperforming even Sergio Fajardo, a favorite in the 2021 polls, but whose voting intentions plummeted in recent polls.

After passing through the Bucaramanga city hall, Hernández presents around 300 works among “schools, parks, sports areas, public lighting, infrastructure for mobility and culture” as his greatest achievements.

According to the 2019 citizen perception survey, he achieved a favorable image of 62% in that year’s consultation; 52% of people said he did a good job during his tenure; and 47% of respondents said they trust his management, against 28% who said they distrust it.

Now, his government plan has some points that put him on a confusing political spectrum.

Victim of ELN guerrillas who kidnapped and murdered his daughter in 2004, Hernández told CNN who agreed to abide by the agreements signed between the government and the demobilized guerrilla from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). His position in 2016 was to vote “no” in the plebiscite for peace, local media reported.

Regarding a possible peace agreement with the ELN, Hernández says that he would sign an “other” to the one already signed with the FARC, a mere administrative procedure, as he does not agree to establish “new negotiation tables that involve interminable talks”, according to your government plan.

Among its proposals are the reduction of the VAT (Value Added Tax) from 19% to 10%, the reduction of the State payroll and the elimination of some unpopular taxes. He also says he will increase subsidies to the poor and even reduce high toll costs.

He promises to create care centers for drug addicts and has shown his support for the legalization of drugs such as marijuana – he says Colombia “produces the best” in the world – which, he says, is a source of work and progress. “If we continue like this, one day with cocaine will be the same”, analyzed the candidate.

And among his proposals, he even talked about removing the directors of the Colombian Football Federation, because, in his opinion, the entity is a “circus” full of “thieves” and “scoundrels”.

“I will find out what needs to be done to [a federação] get rid of all these leaders who spoil what is good and begin to betray the interests of the fans”, he said in an interview in early May to the channel “Marca Claro”.

Finally, Hernández is a complex and controversial character. Not only for his eccentric comments, but also for his contradictions in the public square, where he is rarely seen participating in debates. His strength, according to Acelas, is being a character, a “rockstar”, on social networks, seeking to go to the second round to be the next president of Colombia.