Colombia presidential election 2014

[Famous Mortimer]

Candidates:

Juan Miguel Santos (Social National Unity Party, also backed the Colombian Liberal Party and Radical Change)

Óscar Iván Zuluaga (Democratic Centre, new party founded by Alvaro Uribe, who feels that his hand picked successor is now too weak on terrorism)

Clara López (Candidate of the soft pro-FARC Alternative Democratic Pole. Doing pretty well in the polls, presumably because more mainstream left-wingers have yet to agree on a candidate).

Aída Avella (Candidate of the Patriotic Union, the political wing of FARC which reemerged after about 20 years)

Parties and alliances yet to agree on a candidate:

Colombian Conservative Party (split between those who support Zuluaga, those who support Santos, and those who want to nominate Marta Lucía Ramírez)

Green Alliance (an alliance of the Green Party and the Progressive Movement, a new anti-FARC leftist party founded by Gustavo Petro, who was removed from office as Bogota mayor basically for being a socialist. Candidates include former Liberal Bogota Mayor Enrique Peñalosa, former hostage Ingrid Betancourt, Progressive Senator Camilo Romero, Green Senator John Sudarsky, and former guerrilla Antonio Navarro Wolff.

[Famous Mortimer]

Really great analysis.

I remember reading something about the possibility of Uribe running again (since he literally has a party named after him now). I assume that's not happening?

No, he has endorsed Óscar Iván Zuluaga.

Also, there are two parties named after him.

The Party of the U, which he no longer supports and the Uribe Democratic Centre (officially just Democratic Centre), his new party that is putting forward Zuluaga.

[Famous Mortimer]

The Conservative Party has officially nominated Marta Lucía Ramírez.

Marta Lucía Ramírez served as Juan Miguel Santos' deputy when he was Trade Minister and they were both members of the Liberal Party party in the 90s.

Later, she became Uribe's Defense Minister, later to be replaced by Santos.

She was a member of Congress for the Party of the U before defecting to the Conservatives.

Despite, or maybe because of, her history with Santos, she is seen as a semi-Uribista candidate and likely to endorse Zuluaga in a second round, if not drop out and back him before the first.

[Famous Mortimer]

The Petro dismissal probably deserves its own thread in International General Discussion.

[Famous Mortimer]

I have some background questions I'm ashamed not to know the answers to:

1) What was the nature of the New Liberalism movement in the 80s? I was under the impression it was a left-wing movement away from classical liberalism. However, it also appears that New Liberalism turned into Radical Change and Radical Change is always described as conservative. What are the real ideologies of these movements?

2) Why did M-19 crash so hard in the mid-90s. In 1990 and 1991, they came in second place, beating the conservatives. In 1994, they only won 3% of the vote.

[Famous Mortimer]

Ingrid Betancourt was also a member of New Liberalism.

Clara López Obregón surprises me though. It seems all the members listed were/are pretty hawkish re:The FARC.

I though CLO was a FARC sympathizer. If she's not, why didn't she join the Progressive Movement?

[Famous Mortimer]

Well if she was in UP she was definitely pro-FARC.

So far there's no clearly anti-FARC clearly left-wing candidate running for president

and it doesn't look like there will be.

That's truly unfortunate.

[Famous Mortimer]

Unsuccessful assassination attempt against Patriotic Union candidate.

[Famous Mortimer]

Looks like a stronger than expected performance by the Conservative Party is the main reason for Santos losing his majority.

Not much of a victory for Uribe, especially since his party didn't come in first place.

[Famous Mortimer]

Enrique Peñalosa is now officially the Green Alliance candidate.

[Famous Mortimer]

Temporarily changed the title so that maybe we will get some more views/discussion.

[Famous Mortimer]

The Patriotic Union candidate has dropped out to become the VP candidate of the Alternative Democratic Pole.

[Famous Mortimer]

Run-off June 15th.

Wow, what a massive swing to the right. Not just Uribe's party coming in first (which was expected based on the polls) but the Conservatives still coming in third.

[Famous Mortimer]

I wonder if people still link Petro and Lopez. They were running mates last time but now they're different parties.

[Famous Mortimer]

Petro endorsed Santos in the first round?

What does his comment about Peñalosa mean? It didn't translate too well. Does he mean he's endorsing Santos in the second round because Peñalosa isn't an option (suggesting Peñalosa was his first choice) or does he mean he's endorsing Santos because Peñalosa and the Greens won't?

I assume Peñalosa himself is staying neutral to spite Petro?

Is the Green Alliance pretty much dead now? Now it's back to just the Green Party and the Progressive Movement individually?