The far-right candidate is navigating treacherous ground to reach the second round of the Colombian presidential election. Abelardo de la Espriella, who is vying for second place in the polls with Uribista candidate Paloma Valencia, gave two interviews — one on radio and one on television — that have dominated the debate due to his misogynistic remarks. On the radio program Piso 8, he claimed that he gained many female votes because of the size of his genitals and asked the reporter present to zoom in on a photo that highlighted them. On television, he called a veteran journalist ignorant when she asked him about a comment the criminal lawyer had made years earlier: “Ethics has nothing to do with the law.” Journalists and politicians came out in defense of women and criticized the lawyer, making sexism a central issue in the electoral arena. This presents an opportunity for Valencia to gain ground, but De la Espriella also has a path to maintain his lead in the polls.
Enormous banners erected across Plaza de Mayo and the surrounding avenues in downtown Buenos Aires repeated the same slogan: “Milei, comply with the law.” Hundreds of thousands of people chanted it this Tuesday as they marched to demand that Argentina’s hardline government halt its cuts to public universities and release the funds approved by Congress. “The funding of the national university system is in a critical state, and the main cause is that the national government is failing to comply with the basic democratic and constitutional rule: to uphold the university funding law, which establishes a minimum level of resources that ensures the normal functioning of the system,” denounced academic authorities, faculty members and students in a joint statement read at the main protest event. The administration of Javier Milei labeled the federal university march an “opposition act” and reiterated that it will not release the requested funds.
© Rodrigo Abd (AP)
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