Elections in Colombia/Most violent month of 2022

Presidential Elections in Colombia. President López Obrador celebrated the victory of left-wing candidate, Gustavo Petro, in Colombia.

On Sunday, Colombia held the second presidential elections round. After three attempts, Gustavo Petro won with 50.48 percent while right-wing candidate Rodolfo Hernández obtained47.26 percent of the votes. Petro is considered the first left-wing candidate to win a presidential race in Colombia, thus representing a major change. Francia Márquez will be the next vice president, the first Afro-American woman to hold the second most important position in the country.

May, the most violent month of 2022. The Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC) reported that May has been the most violent month of 2022 registering the highest homicide rate. Rosa Icela Rodríguez, Minister of Security reported that 2,833 homicides were recorded, beating the number registered at the end of March, 2,653. 

Moreover, the Minister said that there is a murder rate decrease tendency, a 7.8 percent decrease in comparison to historical maximums of 2018. The SSPC pointed out that the average homicide rate in the first five months of the year totals 84 daily murders representing a 10.8 decline in comparison to 2021. For the January - May 2022 period, 48 percent of the homicides occurred in six entities: Guanajuato with 1,292, Michoacan with 1,204, Estado de Mexico with 1,067, Baja California with 1,039, Jalisco with 816 and Sonora with 732.

Regarding femicides, 77 cases were registered in May, a decrease in respect to April when 82 cases were reported and a 31.2 percent decline compared to the maximum historical registered in August of last year with 112 cases.

Murder of Daniel Picazo. After the murder of Daniel Picazo by a group of 200 citizens, President López Obrador asked the people to trust the authorities and not take justice into their own hands. 

Daniel Picazo, lawyer and political advisor in the Chamber of Deputies was murdered by a mob because he looked suspicious and the people confused him for a child kidnapper. Picazo was driving with another person through the streets of Huachinango, Puebla when the mob began to block their exit. The other person was able to run and get away from the perpetrators and sought refuge in a safe place.  In the meantime, the mob began harassing Picazo by setting his body and car on fire. López Obrador said these acts are “unjust, inhumane and do not correspond to what a responsible society should do.”