The parallels between Rodolfo Hernandez and Donald Trump are clear: two ultra-rich real estate entrepreneurs who want to be president when they retire with roaring populism.
Trump did it in the US in 2017, and Hernandez has a good chance of winning Sunday’s run-off in Colombia.
Until the first round at the end of May, Hernandez was considered an outsider. In the polls, he is now nearly on par with his left-wing rival, former fighter Gustavo Petro. Instead of asking for letters like Petro, Hernandez conveys his messages to people in excerpts from the video and introduces himself as the “King of TikTok.”
His main theme is the fight against corruption. However, his exact plans for the presidency remain murky. The right, which has been in power for decades, is its enemy, but the traditional parties still want to support Hernandez in the run-off – in order to prevent Petro from the left. Hernandez made his fortune (about $100 million) from real estate.
At the end of 2015 he was elected mayor of Bucaramanga. At the time, he came out to vote with the promise of free homes for the poor—that were never built. He rose to prominence out of town in 2018 when he slapped on camera a council member who accused one of his four sons of bribery.
Hernandez’s behavior as a fighter against a corrupt elite is not entirely convincing. He himself is accused of favoring a company linked to one of his sons as mayor.
He’s no different from Trump in that either, just as much as his sexual outbursts, explicit language, and historical ignorance.
Hernandez said years ago that he was an admirer of “German thinker Adolf Hitler”. He later apologized and confirmed that he did mean Albert Einstein.
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