Historic turning point in the presidential election in Colombia: According to official figures, the left-wing candidate Gustavo Petro won the first round of the election on Sunday with 40 percent of the votes.

The former guerrilla turned senator will face populist millionaire Rodolfo Hernández, who surprisingly came second, in the June 19 runoff.

The candidate from the traditional right ended up in third place.

After counting 99 percent of the ballot papers, the 62-year-old Petro got 40.3 percent of the votes, according to the residents' registration office responsible for organizing the elections.

Independent entrepreneur Hernández received 28 percent.

He passed conservative candidate Federico "Fico" Gutiérrez, who suffered an unprecedented defeat for Colombia's traditional right by nearly 24 percent.

If Petros wins the runoff, Colombia will have its first left-leaning head of state.

So far, power in the South American country has always been concentrated in the hands of more or less conservative elites.

social hopes

Polls had already put the Social Democrat Petro, who as a young man belonged to the M-19 guerrilla group, clearly ahead with around 40 percent.

To win in the first round, however, he would have needed an absolute majority of the votes.

More than 8.4 million Colombians voted for Petro on Sunday in hopes he would tackle poverty, rural violence, urban crime and widespread corruption.

The former "Comandante Aureliano" and later mayor of the capital Bogotá has announced economic, social and ecological reforms.

These include taxes for the wealthy, an emergency program against hunger and the move away from oil and gas and instead promoting renewable energies

Great inequality

A large part of Petro's supporters is recruited from the protest movement, which last year opposed right-wing President Iván Duque in view of the hardships of large parts of the population, which were exacerbated by the corona pandemic.

According to the UN, at least 46 people were killed in the unrest at the time.

Around 40 percent of Colombians live in poverty and, according to the World Bank, income inequality in the country is among the most pronounced in the world.

"We all want change," said 34-year-old porter Elison Beltran, who voted for independent candidate Hernández.

A total of 5.9 million voters voted for the 77-year-old millionaire.

During the election campaign, he proposed closing embassies to pay off student loans.

In addition, every Colombian should have the right to travel to the sea once in their life.

Hernández started the race as an outsider, but had recently gained ground in the polls.

The local press dubbed him the "Colombian Trump".

The third-placed ex-mayor Gutiérrez had presented himself as an advocate of a hard line against crime and especially drug trafficking, referring to his politics in the former drug metropolis Medellín.

Petro started four years ago

Outgoing President Iván Duque, who was not allowed to stand again after one term in office, called on "all Colombians to vote with enthusiasm and joy - and without hatred, without prejudice and without bias".

Four years ago he had beaten Petro, who was already a candidate at the time, in the run-off election.

Colombia is still suffering from the aftermath of decades of conflict between left-wing rebels and the army and right-wing paramilitaries.

The M-19, to which Petro once belonged, gave up the armed struggle in the early 1990s, long before the much larger FARC guerrillas, which only signed a peace agreement with the government in 2016.

The election was accompanied by a large security presence.

Around 300,000 police officers and soldiers were deployed to protect the 12,000 polling stations.

The Organization of American States and the European Union sent election observers.