'He is a mixture of Maduro and Díaz-Canel': Former Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos sounds the alarm in Voz News over front-runner Iván Cepeda

Former Colombian Vice President Francisco "Pacho" Santos, who served from 2002 to 2010 as Álvaro Uribe Vélez's running mate, warned in an interview with Voz News executive producer Karina Yapor that next Sunday's presidential elections put at stake nothing less than the country's democracy and freedom.

Santos warned, mainly, of the danger posed by leftist candidate Ivan Cepeda, who is leading the polls to advance to a potential second round. "His origin is the Communist Party, he has all the populist mentality in its maximum expression. He is a mixture of Maduro and Díaz-Canel," he said, adding that Cepeda "thinks Cuba is a great democracy and he really believes it."

The former official explained the popular support that Cepeda drags as an effect of the legacy of President Gustavo Petro, who, in his opinion, used the state apparatus to buy votes through perks and unsustainable subsidies. "This has already happened in Argentina and Venezuela, countries much richer than Colombia, and what it will generate is a fiscal catastrophe," he warned.

Santos also expressed his concern about possible external interferences in the electoral process, citing intelligence reports that would point to operations of the Cuban G2, Russian and Venezuelan intelligence aimed at disinformation and the generation of social chaos in case the left loses the elections. "Colombia is living an electoral process where there is a president who puts his hand to the bottom," he said in Voz News.

Asked about the controversial call made by former president Álvaro Uribe to the FARC, ELN and other armed groups warning them that Cepeda will betray them, Santos backed his former political boss's reading: "The narcos are betting on Cepeda because they have done very well with Petro. And they are right when he says: look, the United States is squeezing and they are going to hand them over."

Facing a second round that he considered inevitable, Santos defended the center-right candidate Paloma Valencia as the only one capable of defeating Cepeda clearly by more than ten points, according to his analysis. Regarding the third candidate, the conservative Abelardo de la Espriella, he acknowledged that he does not have fundamental concerns but questioned that his campaign has not built bridges to the center of the electorate.

Finally, the former ambassador of Colombia to the United States anticipated that an eventual Cepeda administration would imply "a constant fight" with the Trump Administration and an alignment with China, Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela. "Cepeda represents the exact opposite of democracy. He is much more akin to them," he sentenced.