Rodolfo Hernández Suárez (26 March 1945 – 2 September 2024) was a Colombian politician, businessman and engineer. Hernández was a presidential candidate in the 2022 election.[1]
In May 2022, he advanced to the June run-off election against left-wingSenatorGustavo Petro after coming in second place in the first round voting.[3] He was called the "King of TikTok" for using the app many times during his presidential campaign.[4][5] In June 2022, he lost the election to Petro by a 47% to 50% vote margin.[6]
After losing the election, Hernández Suárez applied for his party to become a legal party by the National Electoral Council. LIGA became a party on 4 August 2022 and Hernández became the party's president.[7]
On 23 June 2022, Hernández Suárez accepted a senate seat offered to the runner-up in a presidential election. However, he said he wished to run for office in Santander in 2023 and said that his senate tenure may last for no more than a few months.[8] He, along with all members of Congress, were sworn in on 20 July.[9] Hernández claimed his time in the senate was like having Lionel Messi as a goalkeeper. However, he resigned from the upper house on 25 October, saying that the position was "not right" for him.[10]
Controversy
In a 2016 interview, Hernández Suárez said that he was "a follower of a great German thinker, named Adolf Hitler."[11] He later apologized and said he meant to say Albert Einstein.[12]
His father was kidnapped and held for 135 days by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP), and Juliana, one of his four children, was kidnapped and possibly killed by a guerrilla group in 2004,[13] after he refused to pay the ransom, saying it would put the rest of his family at a higher risk of kidnapping.[14]
Hernández Suárez died of problems caused by liver surgery and colon cancer at a clinic in Piedecuesta, Colombia on 2 September 2024, aged 79.[15]
