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Hashemite
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« on: February 03, 2017, 09:30:01 PM »
« edited: March 30, 2017, 10:01:37 PM by Hash »

It is early to start this thread, but (a) it has been getting off to an extremely early start already and (b) I obsess over this.

Congressional elections will be held March 11, 2018, and presidential elections on May 27 with a runoff on June 17. It's a really fascinating time in Colombian politics and these will be very major elections -- President Santos is term-limited and is moving towards lame-duck territory this year, the peace agreement with the FARC was finally renegotiated and signed in November 2016 after the tragic plebiscite of October 2 2016, the Congress is now implementing the peace agreement using a 'fast-track' mechanism, the FARC are expected to have demobilized and delivered all their weapons by May 2017, the FARC will be transforming into a peaceful political party this year, political polarization remains unusually high and virulent post-plebiscite (and threatens the successful implementation of the peace agreement), post-conflict is the popular catchphrase of the day everywhere, and Colombian politicians are imitating the Americans in beginning the presidential campaign earlier than ever before. Just this week we've had two bombshells which may completely redefine the race, even if it's f**king February 2017.

I recommend this very educational video to all novices of Colombian politics: Understanding Colombian politics in 43 seconds

In this thread, I hope to provide some background to all this stuff (see below), introduce the main contenders, discuss current events, give some fantastic #analysis, have a good laugh at some of the incredible crap which goes down (Colombia Is Magical Realism), share my hatred of Álvaro Uribe and despair when some fascist criminal inevitably wins this next year.

HOW IT (DOESN'T) WORK

CONGRESS
The Congress is bicameral: a 102 seat Senate and 166 seat House of Representatives.

The Senate is the most prestigious (and somewhat more powerful) chamber, and the traditional rule of Colombian politics is that the House is a stepping stone for the Senate, and senatorial candidates usually run (unofficially) with one or more candidates for the House as a 'fórmula'/'ticket'. Senators are far more well known than representatives.

In the Senate, 100 seats are elected in a single national constituency (which includes voters abroad) and two seats in a special national constituency for indigenous communities.

The House currently has 166 seats, elected in territorial constituencies, special constituencies and an international constituency: 161 seats are elected in territorial constituencies corresponding to the country's 32 departments and Bogotá, with each constituency having a minimum of two seats and additional ones for every 365,000 inhabitants (or fraction greater than 182,500 inhabitants over and above the first 365,000). In 2014, district magnitude varied between two and 18 - 12 have 2 seats, 7 have 3-4, 5 have 5, 6 have 6-7 and three (Valle, Antioquia, Bogotá) have more than ten.

There are two special national constituencies - one for Afro-Colombians (2 seats) and one for indigenous communities (1), and an international expats constituency (2 seats, will drop to 1 in 2018). In the upcoming election, there will be one seat elected to represent the Raizal community of San Andrés and Providencia (it will be considered the third seat of San Andrés' regular territorial constituency).

The November 2016 final peace agreement with the FARC guarantee the new 'FARC party' at least five seats in both the House and Senate for two terms (2018-2022/2022-2026), regardless of their electoral support (they may win more, if they win that many votes - which I feel is unlikely). The peace agreement also creates 16 'special transitory constituencies of peace' for two terms in regions "especially affected by the conflict". This needs to be translated into law sometime this year, and this will give us the details about where they will be, if they will be single or multi-member seats, the electoral system, eligibility rules (per the agreement, only residents or displaced persons returning to the region may run). These seats, I think, will add to the current total of seats (I may be wrong).

Beginning in 2018, as part of the 2015 constitutional reform, the runner-up presidential and vice presidential candidates will be automatically entitled to an additional seat in the Senate and the House, respectively ('best loser' seats).

Electoral system

The threshold is 3% of the valid national vote (Senate), half of the quota (House districts with 3+ seats) or a third of the quota (House districts with 2 seats).

Parties run a single list which may be either closed (non-preferential) or open (preferential). For closed lists, the list of candidates is pre-ordered and cannot be altered, and voters voting for that list only mark the party's logo. For open lists, voters may choose one candidate of his/her preference on the party's list. The list is re-ordered based on the number of preferential votes obtained by each candidate, with the allocation of seats done in descending order, beginning with the candidate who has the most votes. Voters may also vote only for the party list, but that vote is valid only for purposes of the threshold but not for reordering the list.

Most parties run open lists - Colombia's parties are weak and often divided, and remain intensely personalistic, so open lists allow for different political factions to aggregate under a single party but to avoid any infighting over list ordering. Although there is often no coherent national strategy in opening or closing lists, only the most hierarchized parties (those with strong internal discipline or those with an unquestioned national leader) have closed lists in congressional elections. Critics of Colombia's electoral system (myself included) claim that open lists encourage or aggravate problems like: excessive power of individual politicians, internal fragmentation of parties, expensive campaigns, vote buying, clientelism, infiltration of illegal money or groups, lower women's representation and confusing voters. The 2015 constitutional reform originally included abolishing open lists and moving towards mandatory closed lists, arguing that it would build stronger and less personalist parties. But congressmen quietly tossed that idea, without ever really arguing why.

Seats are first distributed between parties (lists) using the d'Hondt method/cifra repartidora (favours larger parties) and only then between candidates on the lists, so there is a clear incentive for parties to pool their votes and/or have candidates who will win enough votes to help them over the threshold.

This electoral system is somewhat unique in the world, although it's a rather normal (and somewhat simple) system compared to the amazing monstrosity which was the pre-2003 electoral system. With some exceptions, it is quite similar to the Brazilian congressional electoral system.

There is no separate 'electoral roll' for Afro-Colombians or indigenous peoples, so it is any voter's individual choice whether to vote in the national/territorial constituencies or in one of the special constituencies -- but you may only vote in one. In practice, the Afro and indigenous seats are elected by very few voters - in 2014, 0.8% of votes were cast for the indigenous seat (116k), 1.7% of votes were cast for the Afro seats (237k). Per the 2005 census, at least 1.4 million identified as indigenous and 4.1 million as Afro-Colombian. Because national parties cannot legally run for the indigenous or Afro seats anymore, they're contested by supposedly ethnic/racial parties or groups, which do not have to meet the threshold to maintain their party registration and face very little actual legal scrutiny from the authorities. The indigenous/Afro elections receive very little attention, and although the indigenous seats tend to go to inoffensive local community leaders (at least for the Senate, only traditional leaders and indigenous organizations leaders are eligible), the Afro seats have become a real festival of corruption, criminality and clientelism (in 2014, neither of the two members elected were even black!).

The electoral system may change as a result of a independent expert 'special electoral mission' launched as part of the final peace agreement with the FARC. It's unclear what their recommendations will be, but some expect a small 'loosening' of rules, like the threshold.

Other considerations

I'll spare you the details of Congress' constitutional powers, although I'm willing to discuss that if there's burning interest.

Senators need to be natural-born citizens over 30, representatives need to be citizens over 25. Anybody who has been imprisoned (except for political offences and criminal negligence); held public employment within the year prior the election; participated in business transactions with public entities or concluded contracts with them; holds ties of marriage or kinship with civil servants holding civil or political authority and those who have previously lost their congressional mandate (investidura) can't be elected; neither can relatives through marriage or kinship in the same party. Breaking the rules of ineligibility, incompatibility and conflict of interest lead to the loss of one's mandate - as does absenteeism, embezzlement of public funds and influence peddling; loss of congressional mandate is decreed by the Council of State, and is congressmen's biggest fear. Congressmen, like all other civil servants, may be removed from office by the Inspector General (Procurador General) for things like breaking the law, infringing on the Constitution or deriving undue profit from the office.

Despite its weak parties, Colombia has pretty rigid (and anal) laws on things like floor crossing, voting the party line and even leaving the party. For example, if an incumbent congressman wants to seek reelection for another party, he/she must resign the seat a year before the candidacy registration window opens (for Congress 2018, it is already too late). So you occasionally get absurdities where a congressman is kept a member of his party against his will, begging for expulsion to no avail.
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« Reply #1 on: February 03, 2017, 09:30:27 PM »

PRESIDENT

This is the big prize, of course. The President is head of State and government (and also 'supreme administrative authority'). In the purest Latin American tradition, the president is the most powerful office, and the legislative branch is in the practice subordinated to the executive (the judiciary is another case, Colombia's judiciary, for all its problems, is remarkably independent).

The President and Vice President are elected as a ticket for a non-renewable four year term using the two-round system (usual rules). In 2004, a constitutional amendment allowed the president to serve a second term; the 2015 constitutional reform restored the absolute ban on presidential reelection. The last two presidents were both reelected, but the president elected in 2018 will be banned from ever seeking a second term.

The vice presidency lacks any constitutional responsibilities other than replacing the president in the event of a temporary or permanent vacancy. Traditionally, the vice presidency (created in 1991) is a ceremonial position, with the choice of presidential running mates being rather unimportant (and vice presidents being effaced figures), but there are clues that this might be changing.

For purposes of our discussion, it's important to point out that the vice president or a minister, magistrate, governor, mayor, senior civil servant (attorney general, inspector general, comptroller, ombudsman) or military commander who wants to run for president must resign his/her office one year prior to the election - so, since the current vice president is running next year, he must resign by May 2017.

ELECTORAL RULES AND REGULATIONS

Ballot access
  • Endorsement by a legally recognized political party or movement. Parties lose their legal recognition if they win less than 3% of valid votes nationally for either the Senate or the House.
  • Gathering signatures as a 'significant group of citizens' - 50,000 for Senate, 3% of valid votes in the last presidential election for President, 20% of the result of dividing the departmental electoral roll by number of seats to be filled for the House

Valid votes
Valid votes include votes for candidacies/lists and blank votes (voto en blanco). There is an option to cast a blank vote - i.e. NOTA - on all ballots, and they are counted as valid votes. The election must be repeated if blank votes are a plurality. This only happens in local elections (and, I guess, the joke Andean Parliament in 2014, but they didn't repeat that election). Parties and movements may register committees to campaign for a blank vote, and have the same formal campaign benefits as other candidates. Again, this mostly only happens in local elections.

Unmarked ballots and invalid votes are counted separately, but do not count as valid votes. The percentage of invalid or unmarked ballots is high in congressional elections, mostly because the ballot is long (and large), convoluted and complicated - 16% of votes cast in 2014 (compared to 2.6% in the 2014 presidential election).

The ballot is called the tarjetón. Here is the 2014 first round presidential one:



And the 2014 senatorial ballot:

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« Reply #2 on: February 03, 2017, 09:31:36 PM »


PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATESAPALOOZA

Of the parties below, the CD, CR, Liberals, U, Conservatives, Polo and Greens are registered parties. There are other parties who are not expected to run candidates of their own, but may offer their party label to somebody or join a coalition with other parties. Candidates listed from other parties will need to get signatures. Parties must choose their candidates through some form of 'democratic participation mechanisms', as obligatorily listed in their own statutes. These include party conventions, polls, internal (closed) primaries and consultas populares (open primaries). Any party, even if unregistered, can organize an open primary with support from the electoral authorities. There was only one in 2014 (the Greens), but four in 2009-2010 (Liberals, Polo, Conservatives, Greens). No party has yet decided how they will pick their candidate, and that will be a topic of internal conflict for a good part of 2017. The Polo has already successfully torn itself apart because of this, and by some views, they may have broken the law and their own statutes in so doing.

Centro Democrático (Democratic Centre, CD)
Ideology: Uribe cultism (uribismo) - la teoría de los tres huevitos ('the theory of the three little eggs': "democratic security", investor confidence and social cohesion); anti-peace agreement (officially 'peace without impunity'); tin foil hats; 'family values'; conservatism
Wikipedia Label: Right / far-right

Óscar Iván Zuluaga - announced: Minister of Finance (2007-2010), Senator (2002-2006), presidential candidate in 2014 (29.3% > 45%)
Iván Duque - announced: Senator (since 2014), former representative to the IDB (2001-2010)
Carlos Holmes Trujillo - announced: former ambassador, Minister of Education (1997-1998), Minister of Education (1992-1993), CD vice-presidential candidate in 2014
Francisco 'Pacho' Santos Calderón - potential: Vice President (2002-2010)

Cambio Radical (Radical Change, CR)
Ideology: Your ideology here for only $5.99; more 'hawkish' and skeptical but nominally pro-peace agreement; association with convicted criminals
Wikipedia Label: Centre-right / right

Germán Vargas Lleras - likely: Vice President (2014-2017), Minister of Housing (2012-2013), Minister of the Interior (2010-2012), Senator (1998-2010), presidential candidate in 2010 (10.1%)

Partido Liberal (Liberal Party)
Ideology: Colombian-style liberalism; strongly pro-peace agreement
Wikipedia Label: Centre / centre-left

Juan Manuel Galán - announced: Senator (since 2014)
Humberto de la Calle - potential: government chief negotiator in Havana (2012-2016), Vice President (1994-1996), Minister of the Interior (1991-1993),
Juan Fernando Cristo - potential: Minister of the Interior (since 2014), Senator (1998-2014)
Luis Fernando Velasco - potential: Senator (since 2006), representative (1998-2006)
Viviane Morales - potential: Senator (since 2014, 1998-2002), Attorney General (2011-2012), representative (1991-1998)

Partido de la U (Party of the U)
Ideology: Mona-Lisa Saperstein; clientelism and patronage; pro-peace agreement
Wikipedia Label: Mona-Lisa Saperstein

Roy Barreras - potential: Senator (since 2010), representative (2006-2010)
Juan Carlos Pinzón - potential: Ambassador to the United States (since 2015), Minister of Defence (2011-2015)
Aurelio Iragorri Valencia - potential: Minister of Agriculture (since 2014), Minister of the Interior (2013-2014)

Partido Conservador (Conservative Party)
Ideology: Mona-Lisa Saperstein; I wish I could bake a cake filled with rainbows and smiles and everyone would eat and be happy; conservatism; family values'; pro-peace agreement; anti-peace agreement; religious theocracy/burning books/Lefebvriste (Ordóñez only)
Wikipedia Label: Right-wing Mona-Lisa Saperstein

Marta Lucía Ramírez - likely: Senator (2006-2009), Minister of Defence (2002-2003), Minister of Foreign Trade (1998-2002), presidential candidate in 2014 (15.5%)
Alejandro Ordóñez - likely: Inspector General (2009-2016), Councillor of State (2000-2008)
Mauricio Cárdenas - potential: Minister of Finance (since 2012), Minister of Mines and Energy (2011-2012)
Ubeimar Delgado - announced: Governor of the Valle del Cauca (2012-2015), Senator (2006-2010), representative (1998-2006)

Polo Democrático Alternativo (Alternative Democratic Pole)-Movimiento Obrero Independiente y Revolucionario (MOIR)
Ideology: left-wing (toned-down Maoism); anti-neoliberalism; pro-peace agreement; anti-corruption
Wikipedia Label: Left

Jorge Enrique Robledo - announced: Senator (since 2002)

Polo Democrático Alternativo (Alternative Democratic Pole)-Polo Social / Vamos por los Derechos (Polo Paz)
Ideology: social democracy; pacifism; social liberalism; pro-peace agreement
Wikipedia Label: Centre-left / left

Clara López - likely: Minister of Labour (since 2016), caretaker Mayor of Bogotá (2011), Secretary of Government of Bogotá (2008-2010), presidential candidate in 2014 (15.2%)
Iván Cepeda - potential: Senator (since 2014), representative (2010-2014)

Movimiento Progresistas (Progressives Movement)
Ideology: social democracy/socialism; pro-peace agreement; anti-corruption/political reform
Wikipedia Label Left

Gustavo Petro - likely: Mayor of Bogotá (2012-2015), Senator (2006-2010), representative (1991-1994/1998-2006), presidential candidate in 2010 (9.1%)

Marcha Patriótica (Patriotic March)
Ideology: left-wing (radical left/chavista); anti-imperialism; 'Bolivarian'; pro-peace agreement

Piedad Córdoba - announced: Senator (1994-2010)

Alianza Verde (Green Alliance)
Ideology: anti-corruption/political reform; progressive left-liberal; pro-peace agreement
Wikipedia Label: Centre-left

Claudia López - announced: Senator (since 2014)
Antonio Navarro Wolff - potential: Senator (since 2014/2002-2006), Governor of Nariño (2008-2011), representative (1998-2002), Mayor of Pasto (1995-1997), Minister of Health (1990-1991), AD M-19 presidential candidate in 1990 (12.5%) and 1994 (3.8%)

Compromiso Ciudadano (Civic Commitment)
Ideology: centrist reformist/progressive; anti-corruption; pro-peace agreement
Wikipedia Label: Centre / centre-left

Sergio Fajardo - likely: Governor of Antioquia (2012-2015), Mayor of Medellín (2003-2007)

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS - GAME OF COALITIONS

Coalitions are the big hit in Colombian politics right now. Everybody wants to big the yugest one. Pie-in-the-sky speculation runs wild about party recompositions, notably with the usual perennial talk of 'Liberal re-unification'. Parties can band together and hold 'inter-party primaries' - they've been talking about them since 2010, but they've never happened. Will 2018 be different? Nobody in the current field will win a Uribe 2002/2006-like triumph of epic proportions, so coalitions will be necessary at one point or another. The question is when they'll come about - in 2017, in March 2018, before May 2018 or before June 2018? Here are all the potential combos, in vague order of likelihood.

  • Liberal-U
  • Greens-Fajardo
  • CR-Liberal
  • CD-Conservative -- 'the No coalition'
  • Greens-Fajardo-Petro
  • CR-Liberal-U
  • CR-Conservative
  • Greens-Polo-Fajardo and/or Petro
  • Marcha Patriótica-FARC party
  • Liberal-U-CR -- 'the Yes coalition'/'Unidad Nacional 3.0'
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« Reply #3 on: February 03, 2017, 09:31:54 PM »

CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS - EARLY OUTLOOKS

The congressional elections will, as always, be the battle royale between regional clientelistic clans, patronage machines, regional caciques' machines and the festival of the very worst in Colombian politics. It is misunderstood by foreign observers who read them as a single national contest, when it really isn't. Here are some of the things to look forward to:

  • Uribismo - the CD - in 2014 was a remarkable political phenomenon (given that it was in opposition and without many traditional machines), spearheaded by the personal aura of The Great Colombian/The President-Founder. Uribe will again lead the CD's Senate list in 2018, although it may be an open list this time. How will it fare? Will it gain more votes? It won 2 million in 2014.
  • Will presidential candidate and potential favourite Germán Vargas Lleras' Cambio Radical make the major gains it is already working to build? It won 7% and 9 seats in 2014 (for Senate), an unimpressive fifth. Vargas Lleras wants to move up to first or second, knowing that it is absolutely key to his own success in the presidential race. He is already building potentially lucrative alliances with some "bad hombres".
  • How will the Partido de la U fare? It is the largest party in Congress, but as nothing more than a disjointed and incoherent amalgamation of regional caciques and clientelistic networks, it now lacks a strong national figure for 2018 and is in a weird spot as a result. As 2015 local elections showed, the U's "amalgamation of regional caciques and clientelistic networks" isn't something to take lightly - they're very powerful when put together into one bottle.
  • How will the new 'FARC party' fare? They're guaranteed seats regardless, but they still will have to run in the elections. Will they do so in coalition, as they've indicated, or on their own? Where is their support concentrated? Who do they run - guerrilleros or civilian sympathizers? How many of their candidates are assassinated?
  • The race for the 16 transitional constituencies in conflict regions - registered parties and the 'FARC party' can't run. Who takes them? Do we have real community leaders, victims, peasant organizations, local groups and so forth take them [as is the hope] and provide real representation of these marginalized and peripheral regions? Or will we see various unsavoury "bad hombres" sneak their way into (some of) them - turning them into a bigger version of the Afro seats? Many of the regions where these seats are likely to be created are dominated by the nastiest and most nefarious of political mafias.
  • Three small parties may be at risk of falling under the 3% threshold (in 2014, about 350k votes) - the Greens, left-wing Polo and the 'trash collector' party Opción Ciudadana. The Greens and Polo are losing their top vote-getters from 2014 (C. López and J.E. Robledo). The Greens should nevertheless be fine, as they have a few incumbents and non-incumbents to back it up. The leftist Polo, however, is not only losing its most popular senator but also on the verge of splitting, and their congressional hopes do not seem very rosy to me even if it is early. They need to find somebody who can keep Robledo's 192,000 votes in the party. But they're busy fighting among themselves right now. Opción Ciudadana, the 'trash collector'/'garbage can' party, is the last standing remnant of the 2002-2010 tin pot criminal front parties. Basically all of their congresscritters have some kind of ties to criminal (paramilitary) groups or have family members convicted for criminal ties. Many of its senators are unhappy with the party's owner, and are retiring and expected to support an ally to run in their stead but with another party (like CR). This may cost what remains of O.C. a lot in 2018, although I have full faith in their ability to find some other random criminals out there and save the business.
  • Which unregistered parties will be running, and how will they do? Will Sergio Fajardo run a list of supporters, as he did (unsuccessfully) in 2010? Will the radical leftist Marcha Patriótica run lists, or will they try to win the 16 special seats?
  • The usual festival of herederos (heirs of convicted/investigated/indicted politicians) and cuestionados (questioned for corruption or criminal activities/ties). 2014 was a really good festival on that front.
  • Which regional caciques and clientelistic machines will gain/lose the most? It's a very dynamic, cut-throat world out there. The 2015 local elections have changed the equation in many regions. Expect big names falling, and lesser known aspiring caciques to rise to the top.
  • In urban middle-class centres, who will be the hit with the voto de opinión (non-machine/clientelist urban votes), now that a lot of the winners of the voto de opinión in 2014 are retiring.
  • I hope Conservative senator Roberto Gerlein, age 263, will seek his xxth term. He's a wonderful crazy old coot who really doesn't give a shit about anything and sleeps on the job. God bless this hero.
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« Reply #4 on: February 07, 2017, 11:17:12 AM »

New Opinometro/Pulso Pais poll (in parentheses, would not vote for)

Gustavo Petro 12.9% (15.3%)
Sergio Fajardo 12.3% (0.9%)
Germán Vargas Lleras 9.8% (8.4%)
Óscar Iván Zuluaga 7.8% (13.7%)
Claudia López 6.6% (4.3%)
Juan Manuel Galán 5.5% (0.8%)
Humberto de la Calle 4.8% (0.9%)
Marta Lucía Ramírez 4.2% (0.4%)
Pacho Santos 4.1% (4.9%)
Piedad Córdoba 2.8% (20%)
Alejandro Ordóñez 2.7% (3.8%)
Jorge Enrique Robledo 2.4% (0.2%)
Iván Duque 0.6% (0.8%)
Carlos Holmes 0.3% (0.9%)
don't know 11.2%
no answer 11.9%

Santos approval: 24 (-12) / 72 (+13)
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« Reply #5 on: February 11, 2017, 04:20:39 PM »

Clearly, nobody cares about this (unfortunately), but hopefully at least someone is reading this. To help introduce people to Colombian politics, here is a disjointed and incoherent #analysis and mish-mash of impressions. Read it- you may find it interesting and may help wrap your head around this craziness.

Politically, Colombia is a country of paradoxes: (one of) "the oldest democracy in South America", but also the oldest armed conflict in the Americas (since 1964, or, more accurately, 1946-8). It is a country with a long tradition of competitive elections, civilian governments, peaceful transitions of power and - for most of its history - a fairly consensual (formal) political culture. It is also a country with a long tradition of political violence, expressed in a dozen-odd civil wars in the nineteenth century, the madness of the Violencia or the barbarity of the current armed conflict in all its plural forms. How these two, apparently self-contradictory, things can apparently coexist is one of the most interesting things (to me) about Colombian politics.

Colombian politics and history, even disregarding violence, stand out in Latin America - I mean, pick up any undergrad textbook which mentions South America, and Colombia is nothing more than a footnote or mentioned in passing, usually preceded with the word 'except'. Despite being South America's second most populous country, and one of its largest economies, less is commonly known about it than is known of, say, Argentina or Chile (and, obviously, Cuba). I suppose that's because Colombia is that annoying exception which breaks down polisci theories. Colombia is practically the only Latin American country which was not carried by the Pink/Red wave a few years ago (also, Mexico, but Mexico has a strong left). Related to this point, Colombia is one of the few Latin American countries which lacks a strong left. Colombia is one of the few Latin American countries (along with minor Central American countries and basket case Paraguay) where the nineteenth century two-party, Liberal/Conservative, system survived well into the twentieth century - certainly much longer than it did in Mexico, Ecuador or Venezuela. There are plenty of other cases where Colombia is the odd man out, or unique in some way - the near-absence of military coups, the lack of an authoritarian military dictatorship in the 1970s or the oddity of the National Front, for example.

The common refrain about Colombia being "the oldest democracy in South America" isn't entirely accurate, and if your definition of democracy is the slightest bit more demanding than "they hold elections", then you'd probably disagree with it. At the same time, it does have a lot of truth to it - Colombia had a peaceful transition of power between two opposing sides following an election in 1836, Colombia's change of government during the Depression era (1930) came through an election won by the opposition (because the governing party was divided) rather than a revolution or coup as in most other South American countries, presidents who don't serve the entirety of their terms are far more the exception than the rule (hello Ecuador) and elections are a central element to political competition in Colombia (and there is a long list of closely contested elections). On the other hand, several points strike pretty big holes in the idea of "the oldest democracy" - the quasi-permanent undemocratic states of emergency under article 121 of the 1886 constitution between the 1940s and 1991 (which allowed governments, among other things, to legislate by decree), massive human rights abuses by public authorities, the widespread collusion and criminal alliances between illegal groups and politicians, the ruling elites' inability/unwillingness to integrate new social groups (especially disadvantaged or marginalized ones) into formal political mechanisms or the exclusionary power-sharing National Front (1958-1974). Several of these factors have been causes and effects of the armed conflict.

Something must be said about the Liberal (rojos - reds) and Conservative (azules - blues, or godos) parties, and their role in Colombian politics and society. Both arose sometime in the nineteenth century, at roughly the same time, one in reaction to the other, and they remain the only two relevant political parties until the 1990s. The initial ideological differences between the two were similar to those between the same parties in other countries in the region - overstated, though with some differences on things like religion/the role of the Church, free trade and territorial organization (federalism). The Liberals of the nineteenth century got their wet dream in the 1863 constitution, of the 'United States of Colombia', and supported very decentralized federalism, personal freedom (with caveats), free trade (to an extent) and state-ordained secularism/laïcité; the Conservatives, on the other hand, got their wet dream in the 1886 constitution, and their foundations were family, faith and order (still reflected in the national anthem - Comprende las palabras / Del que murió en la cruz, or on the coat of arms - Libertad y Orden). In any case, both parties have always been a complex, convoluted mess of factions - who, at specific times, have jumped ship for purpose of defeating a common enemy. The differences in social makeup of the parties, at their outset, have been overstated as well - it was never a 'landowning Conservatives' versus 'bourgeois merchant Liberals' affair of the kind suggested by some old literature. Political competition between and within the Liberals and Conservatives took place in elections (i.e. 1930, 1946), but also in civil wars - like those of the nineteenth century, of the War of the Thousand Days at the turn of the last century and, most recently, the Violencia. The Liberals and Conservatives, in a country lacking a national myth or ethos, served an important function in unifying a fragmented and poorly connected country of regions. At the same time, they (and, for the godos, the Church) also created and cemented 'inherited hatreds', fuelling political violence. To the above list of ideological differences I would add a really important one - murdering the other side. A tour guide in Cali once told me that the Liberals and Conservatives have been the cause/root of every problem in Colombia - it's hard to disagree.

The Liberals ruled between 1861 and the early 1880s - the 'radical Olympus'; the Conservatives ruled from about 1886 to 1930 (in different forms) - the 'Conservative Hegemony' and the Liberals ruled between 1930 and 1946 - the 'Liberal Republic'. After 1930, the Liberals became the dominant party - they were the majority party in every election until some point in the 1990s, and when they lost elections (1946 and 1982) it was because of vote splitting. The Liberals' advantage came from their ability at integrating or (more accurately) co-opting some emerging social group into the political system - unionized workers, some peasants, new urban clienteles and parts of the political left (the Communist Party, for one, was basically an appendage of the Liberals for a good period of time). In every case, of course, the Liberals sold all of these people out - agrarian reform, the lack thereof, being the most tragic and pernicious example.

The last round of red-blue violence in The Violence having been particularly egregious even by Colombian standards, a genius power-sharing mechanism was created by Liberal and Conservative elites in 1957 and entrenched into the constitution - the National Front (Frente Nacional). Among other things, the National Front meant a guaranteed equal 50-50 division of seats in all elected bodies (from town council up to Congress) between the two parties (with other parties explicitly barred from running themselves), an alternation in the presidency (in the style of Restoration Spain's turno pacifico) over what ended up as four terms (1958-1974), an equal division of cabinet and bureaucratic gigs at all levels between parties, requirements for inflated super-majorities to do or pass anything and an indefinite sunset clause guaranteeing bipartisan power-sharing far beyond 1974 (article 120 of the 1886 constitution) -- although the National Front dispensations ended in 1974, the first single-party government was that of Virgilio Barco (1986). The National Front was hardly democratic, and although its successes should not be downplayed (i.e. the Liberals and Conservatives stopped murdering each other, although this took away their last remaining ideological difference, and other people were murdered instead), it had a fairly negative long-term impact on Colombian democracy and political participation (i.e. it's one of the reasons why turnout is crap). That said, although other parties were excluded from political/electoral participation, this wasn't as bad as it sounds - the other parties were jokes on their own, regardless of other things, and the other parties found ways to participate by becoming factions of the two parties. It wasn't as if there was no democratic opposition to the system - you had the MRL and later the ANAPO, and former military dictator/poor man's Perón Gustavo Rojas Pinilla (1953-1957) nearly won the 1970 election with his anti-FN ANAPO (amidst claims that it was #rigged, which I'm not convinced is true). The National Front turned competition from inter-party to intra-party, and this continued (and accelerated) after 1974, reinforced by Colombia's laughably bad electoral system (changed in 2003). The Liberal and Conservative parties collapsed progressively in the 1990s - with the highly progressive 1991 constitution which favoured the fragmentation/opening of the party system, the impetus from the electoral system and the paramilitaries' hidden hand. In any case, the Liberal and Conservative parties and their 'traditions' now both exist beyond the parties themselves - the Partido de la U and Cambio Radical are basically factions of the Liberals which split off, and Juan Manuel Santos, a founder and leader of the Partido de la U, is at heart a Liberal.
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« Reply #6 on: February 11, 2017, 04:20:49 PM »



Colombian politics remain intensely clientelistic and patronage-driven. No president has won without support of some kind of political machine -- in Colombia, 'political machine' really takes on its nasty pejorative connotation; Antanas Mockus came closest in 2010, and modern post-2010 uribismo has gone very far without much in the way of traditional political machines (which isn't to say that it doesn't have any). The machines and clientelistic networks they represent reign supreme in Congress, the lair of criminals. They are kept in line to vote for the government's bills through pork (in Santos' Colombia, known as marmelade, which is a superior term), bureaucratic appointments for their friends and allies (at all levels, political machines/clans expect 'bureaucratic quotas' for themselves in administrations) and a chance to sneak in riders to bills (known as micos, literally 'monkeys', again a far superior term to boring English!).  If you don't honour your deal with these "bad hombres", then you will get screwed over - and those people really don't mess around (ask Kiko Gómez, former governor, convicted to 55 years for homicide).

I feel as if I should go on here -- about the 1991 constitution, the judiciary's important role, the paradoxical highly legalistic tradition of a war-torn country (Colombianos las armas os han dado la independencia, pero solo las leyes os darán la libertad - Francisco de Paula Santander), US-Colombia relations, Álvaro Uribe, parapolitics or the armed conflict -- but I'd probably ramble on forever, and I fear as if I may have lost my one remaining reader by now...
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« Reply #7 on: February 11, 2017, 04:47:13 PM »

Highly interesting, Hash. I know very little about politics in Colombia, so this was a great read to me. Does the (former?) Liberal/Conservative divide still manifest itself in Colombian politics nowadays (both in terms of party system and in terms of electoral behavior), and if so, how?
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« Reply #8 on: February 11, 2017, 05:44:12 PM »

Highly interesting, Hash. I know very little about politics in Colombia, so this was a great read to me. Does the (former?) Liberal/Conservative divide still manifest itself in Colombian politics nowadays (both in terms of party system and in terms of electoral behavior), and if so, how?

Thanks Smiley

The Liberal and Conservative parties still exist, with a sizable congressional bench and local government presence backing them, although both remain - as ever - factionalized messes, particularly the Conservatives.

The Liberals, at least, have basically exploded in several pieces. The Partido de la U was formed, in good part, by the plethora of Liberal barons and their clientelistic machines who supported Uribe's administration (Uribe is also a former Liberal) and, as they're the epitome of Mona-Lisa Saperstein opportunism in Colombian politics, they morphed into supporters of Santos following the Uribe/Santos falling out. Cambio Radical came out of the Liberal Party, although a longer time ago (pre-Uribe), but many of its people have roots in Luis Carlos Galán's Nuevo Liberalismo faction of the Liberal Party (oh, how low have they sunk!). For one, Germán Vargas Lleras - CR's lider maximo, vice president, presidential candidate and hijo del gran puto (quote from Diosdado Cabello) - is the maternal grandson of former Liberal president Carlos Lleras Restrepo (1966-1970). Of course, as time goes, the Liberal roots of both those parties are getting ever fainter, particularly in the case of CR. Yet, as a sign of their common partisan roots, there has been talk of 'Liberal reunification' since 2010, either through an alliance or a merger of parties.

Voting patterns and electoral behaviour fluctuates a lot in Colombia -- and varies between elections: voting patterns in congressional elections are different from those in presidential elections, and local elections follow their own patterns (although may be similar in patterns to congressional elections in some places, because both are predominated by the clientelistic machines). I mean, Colombian politics are also heavily personality-driven, especially nowadays with the collapse of the party system, so we can't expect very stable voting patterns. The 2014 presidential election and 2016 plebiscite had very similar patterns, but the 2014 election was different from the 2010 one (because, in many regions, those who would've voted Santos in 2010 didn't vote for him in 2014, and vice-versa). The 2014 map bore some resemblance to the historical Liberal/Conservative divide (in that Santos won historically Liberal regions, and Zuluaga/Uribe won historically Conservative ones), although it was a superficial (and coincidental) similarity, which doesn't hold up for every department and certainly doesn't hold up at the municipal level (like, at all). For example, the Caribbean and the Pacific coasts - historically Liberal strongholds - are the regions of highly corrupt clientelistic machine politics, par excellence, and the bulk of the highly corrupt clientelistic machine politics backed Santos in 2014, just as they had (mostly) backed Uribe in 2006 (less so in 2006, Uribe lost much of the Liberal Caribbean and Pacific coasts in 2002, and his Caribbean vote in 2002 was coerced by the paramilitaries). Of course, you can find remnants of Liberal/Conservative local strongholds manifesting themselves consistently in elections, but I feel as if they're few and far between.
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« Reply #9 on: February 12, 2017, 03:45:31 AM »

What the hell does Mona-Lisa Saperstein mean? I googled it and it's a character from Parks and Rec but what does it mean in this context?
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« Reply #10 on: February 13, 2017, 04:49:14 PM »

What the hell does Mona-Lisa Saperstein mean? I googled it and it's a character from Parks and Rec but what does it mean in this context?

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« Reply #11 on: February 13, 2017, 04:54:13 PM »

I haven't commented, because I have little to say that isn't very banal, but I'm definitely reading Smiley
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« Reply #12 on: February 13, 2017, 05:34:11 PM »

Very good post, and I need to day that this is one of the best countries on earth.

One question, how is the Odebrecht scandal affecting the government, I read in a website that some politicans are saying that if the governing coalition accepted briberies to finance Santos' Campaign, he should resign. I don't think that is a realistic case but this case is very serious so what do you think about this? I know that Uribe is very corrupt but I'm afraid that he could use this for 2018.
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« Reply #13 on: February 14, 2017, 10:30:46 PM »

One question, how is the Odebrecht scandal affecting the government, I read in a website that some politicans are saying that if the governing coalition accepted briberies to finance Santos' Campaign, he should resign. I don't think that is a realistic case but this case is very serious so what do you think about this? I know that Uribe is very corrupt but I'm afraid that he could use this for 2018.

Background for those unaware of the Odebrecht scandal: $788 million in bribes for governments, politicians, parties and businessmen paid by the Brazilian engineering/construction firm Odebrecht in nearly a dozen Latin American and Lusophone African countries, including $11 million in Colombia (between 2009 and 2014) to secure public works contracts. The $11 million are seemingly broken down as follows:

-$6.5 million for the concession of the second section of the Ruta del Sol highway (Bogotá-Sta Marta) in 2009, paid to Gabriel García Morales, former vice minister of transports (2007-2010) during the Uribe administration. He was arrested in early January. Gabriel García Morales was a close ally of Álvaro Uribe, one of his infamous buenos muchachos, but Uribe is now claiming that García Morales betrayed him.

-$4.6 million for obtaining an addition/modification to the above contract without a public bidding process in 2013/2014, allegedly paid to former Liberal senator Otto Bula (1998-2002). Bula is, first and foremost, a wealthy landowner, speculator and businessman from Córdoba (which obligatorily come up in every single corruption case) who discretely amassed a fortune (and a great deal of properties, both urban and rural) and has been associated with drug traffickers, money laundering and illegal land deals. His political career was brief, serving stints in the Senate between 1998 and 2002 as the second name on senator Mario Uribe Escobar's list (Álvaro Uribe's cousin, convicted for parapolitics in 2011), but he apparently sells himself to the highest bidder, playing on his political connections. Bula was arrested in January, and is now spilling the beans for a plea deal. It is unclear whether Bula benefited himself from this money, or if he was some sort of intermediary or broker in a wider money laundering operation. Uribe implicated former transport minister Cecilia Álvarez Correa and the family of former education minister Gina Parody (now Álvarez's girlfriend), claiming that Álvarez Correa signed off on the contract to benefit the business interests of one of Parody's relatives; there is 'something there', and authorities are looking into it, but in any case, Uribe hates both Álvarez Correa and (especially) Parody as vile 'traitors' and is always looking for an opportunity to piss them off.

-Additionally, Brazilian magazine Veja revealed that Odebrecht paid (in extras) Brazilian political strategist Duda Mendonça to assist uribista candidate Óscar Iván Zuluaga's 2014 presidential campaign. Odebrecht apparently served as the contact between Zuluaga's campaign and Duda Mendonça, with a meeting in Sao Paulo with Zuluaga's son. Officially, Zuluaga paid Mendonça $1.5 million for his services, but Odebrecht would have paid him the difference with the $4.3 million he had originally requested.

The Zuluaga scandal was the news of early February, which seemed to be tearing the uribista CD apart while Santos and his people enjoyed the show with popcorn. Zuluaga was lynched by his own colleagues, including Uribe, who all seemed intent on throwing him under the bus and sinking his 2018 presidential candidacy in the process. Luis Carlos Restrepo, Uribe's former peace commissioner (convicted for a false demobilization scandal, and currently a fugitive in Canada), said that Zuluaga's behaviour was "ethically reprehensible" and called on the party's ethics committee to investigate - a request relayed by Uribe, keeping in mind that Uribe calls all the shots and that any public statement from any party member generally expresses Uribe's personal opinion as well. That a fugitive is somehow the CD's ethical reference tells you everything you need to know, but whatever. Senator Iván Duque, Zuluaga's main rival for the CD's 2018 presidential nomination (and Uribe's implicit favourite), said that Zuluaga must 'answer for the money'. Uribe, carefully balancing his words, said that "if he knew of the Odebrecht money, it would be very serious" - behind the niceties, a pretty direct hit. This scandal may be fatal for Zuluaga.

Last week, the attorney general dropped the bombshell: the campaign manager of Santos' 2014 re-election campaign would have received $1 million from Odebrecht, through Otto Bula. Bula claimed that the $4.6 million made their way to Colombia through an Andorran bank and Panamanian/Chinese front companies -- and of that money, $1 million went to Santos' campaign (through a Chinese front company), minus a 10% commission he kept for himself. The money would have been handed (in cash, in a suitcase) to one Andrés Giraldo by Bula, person, and finished in the hands of the campaign manager, Roberto Prieto. The attorney general was very careful is phrasing it - using the conditional (habría), and referring to the campaign's leadership rather than the candidate himself - in part because, as it later turned out, the AG's sole evidence here is Otto Bula's testimony. The presidency's response was to immediately attack Bula's character and dirty past as a means of discrediting the story and cutting it short - and they received help, indirectly, from the AG who clarified the next day that Bula's was the only testimony. Both Andrés Giraldo and Roberto Prieto have roundly denied the allegations, and either they're very good liars or they're pretty confident that Bula is lying (here's Giraldo's interview).

Legally, the AG has handed over this issue to the National Electoral Council (CNE) to investigate potential violation of campaign finance limits and illegal foreign donations, but there's little chance the CNE is able to get anything out of this - besides lacking the investigative tools to detect an illegal $1 million in cash, the body is made up of party appointees (a majority of which are from the governing parties), is paralyzed by politicking and is notoriously broken and ineffective at what it does. If the Colombian AG is unable to find more conclusive evidence from Brazil or Panama, then it is likely that this will be shelved away somewhere.

Politically, my initial reaction to this was "Proceso 8.000" (illegal financing of Ernesto Samper's 1994 campaign by the Cali cartel's hot drug trafficking money) and Santos' elephant (from the then-archbishop of Bogotá, who famously said that Samper's defence that the money had been behind his back was like "an elephant coming into your house and not seeing anything") -- and, lo and behold, the next day, the AG said that this was not a "Proceso 8.000", which, technically, is true but may not be in terms of political perceptions. This elephant has paralyzed politicians, and has held up congressional approval of certain key laws and reforms to implement the peace agreement. In terms of public opinion, it is highly likely that, with so many already instinctively disliking Santos, this will only confirm or worsen their negative opinions of him, at a time where he seems to have collapsed back to the low 20s in approval. It will also strengthen the ever more widespread sensation that "they're all corrupt", discrediting politicians across the board.

Calling on Santos to resign is cheap political posturing and political theatrics. It won't happen (nor should it), because it doesn't suit anyone. If Santos were to resign tomorrow (and his resignation was approved by the Senate), Vargas Lleras (who is running for president and will resign the vice presidency by March 2017) would become president and ineligible for the presidency in 2018 unless he served less than three months as president. In other terms, it is impossible. Tellingly, while Vargas Lleras initially fired off a selfish communiqué about how he had nothing to do with this, he and his deplorables quickly closed rank around the president, which isn't something you see everyday (Vargas Lleras had just accused the foreign minister of siding with Maduro in his childish exchange of schoolyard insults with Diosdado Cabello). Claudia López (Green) should know better than playing cheap political theatrics, and I'm disappointed. Jorge Enrique Robledo (Polo) isn't as surprising, and is par for the course coming from him. As for Uribe, I'm surprised at how relatively subdued his reaction to the Bula-Santos scandal has been (I don't follow him on Twitter, because I value my sanity and the life of my computer's screen) - usually, with something like this, you'd expect him to be calling on Santos to commit seppuku. Instead, he said something along the lines of the "delicateness" of the issue or the "imprudence of giving statements on the impulse of first impressions" -- which is something that he has literally never done himself. For some reason, rather than tackling Santos directly, Uribe has instead gone on a deranged attack against three journalists and made another lousy apology about García Morales (does he remind anyone of anyone?!). I'm not sure what Uribe's endgame is here, but I'm still surprised at how relatively subdued he's been over this. It would appear that Uribe is smart enough to realize that he too, with Zuluaga et al., could be hurt by the anti-corruption mood in the country and that it's in his interest to play it safe and let events take their course. There's a strong chance that this will all be buried and forgotten by May 2018. If not, it could instead help the more credible anti-corruption candidates - those who don't have baggage, especially not the baggage of voten por mi mientras no estén en la cárcel - like Clara López, Jorge Enrique Robledo or Sergio Fajardo.
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« Reply #14 on: February 14, 2017, 10:43:09 PM »

... and Bula has now stated that he never gave money to the Santos campaign. As I said, carry on...
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« Reply #15 on: February 16, 2017, 12:54:51 PM »

The interior minister, Juan Fernando Cristo (Liberal), has proposed a new political reform, presented as part of a massive institutional/political reform for the post-conflict. It comes at a weird time, with Cristo himself expected to resign within the coming months to launch his own presidential bid, and Congress bound to go into crazy season in the second half of the year (after July 20) as the congressmen are focused on campaigning rather than legislating (or, rather, stealing money).

Cristo's big political reform includes:
  • Extending the presidential term from 4 to 5 years. Mayors, governors, the attorney general and inspector general would also serve 5 years rather than 4. It also seems as if mayoral/gubernatorial terms would be aligned with presidential terms (mayors/governors are elected a year later currently). The 2015 constitutional reform banned presidential re-election, so it would be a single, non-renewable five year term. The issue, which nobody has raised, is that Congress and local assemblies are elected for four year terms and there's no mention of that in Cristo's proposal.
  • Abolish of the vice presidency and return to the 'presidential designate', the appointed figure charged with replacing the president under the 1886 constitution. Cristo said that it's time to look at the "convenience of returning to an impeccable figure that never generated any controversy". It's very hard not to see this as anything other than a thinly-veiled attack against Germán Vargas Lleras, Cristo's enemy.
  • Reducing the voting age from 18 to 16
  • Compulsory voting for the next two terms (which, currently, means until 2026).
  • Closed lists for Congress - elimination of open lists/preferential voting
  • 100% Public financing for electoral campaigns
  • A new, far more robust, electoral court, perhaps with judicial powers, to investigate and go after illegal campaign financing, electoral crimes and so forth.
  • Regional constituencies for the Senate. The Senate has 100 members elected in a single national constituency, which in practice has left the smaller departments without any representation - whereas they had senatorial representation when the Senate was elected by department, prior to 1991. I'm unsure if Cristo means returning wholesale to election by department, or the creation of some regional constituencies for smaller departments while retaining the national constituency, as the government had unsuccessfully proposed in its 2015 constitutional reform.

These would take effect with the upcoming (2018) term. The first two ideas - term length and vice presidency - would not be passed through the 'fast-track' procedure for peace agreement-related matters, but the rest would. Of course, there's no guarantee any of this will actually make it to Congress: this seems to be more Cristo's idea than a government idea, no formal text has been tabled and Cristo himself will be leaving cabinet soon. The interior ministry has launched an online platform for citizen input and recommendations, which you can do if you have strong feelings about this like I do.

http://www.elespectador.com/noticias/politica/la-reforma-politico-electoral-del-posconflicto-articulo-680190
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« Reply #16 on: February 16, 2017, 03:16:25 PM »

Isn't Petro's Progressive Movement part of the Green Alliance, not the Alternative Democratic Pole?
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« Reply #17 on: February 17, 2017, 04:20:06 PM »

Isn't Petro's Progressive Movement part of the Green Alliance, not the Alternative Democratic Pole?

In reality, the Progresistas are but a figment of Petro's egomaniacal imagination. It barely exists outside of being, more or less, a one-man show behind Petro.

The full story is complicated, and verging on the ridiculous.

The (first) Movimiento Progresistas was founded in 2011, after Petro left the Polo in December 2010, to support Gustavo Petro's mayoral candidacy in Bogotá that same year. Getting into the background to this split is a whole other story, and rather besides the point. Petro's victory (with over 720,000 votes) came along with eight seats (with over 300,000 votes or 15%) on the city council for his movement - making it the largest party (tied with the U). The issue, particularly as future elections (2014) were concerned, was that the Progresistas were not a legally recognized political party and they began seeking out an alliance with the Greens, who were also interested in getting new votes from somewhere because of the real risk that they could fall below the raised threshold in 2014. After rather lengthy negotiations, the Greens and the Progresistas agreed to a full merger, which was sealed in November 2013, creating the Alianza Verde (Green Alliance). The Progresistas brought along with them three incumbent senators, who had been elected with the Polo in 2010, and certain high profile names, first and foremost Antonio Navarro Wolff, who had briefly been Petro's first secretary of government for the first three or so months of his administration in 2012. The merger had been orchestrated with Petro's support, as he was represented in negotiations by two of his closest confidantes - Gloria Flórez and Guillermo Asprilla. The main sticking point was Enrique Peñalosa, Petro's arch-rival since the 2011 mayoral election, who had been implicitly supporting the recall process against Petro and was preparing a presidential candidacy in 2014; things would look very silly if Petro and his main opponent were in the same party. Peñalosa opposed the merger, but found himself in the minority of his party on this matter, though he respected the majority decision (which included a pledge to support/not oppose Petro's administration) in exchange for an open primary to choose the presidential candidate. With Navarro dropping his presidential aspirations to run for Senate instead, Peñalosa's path to presidential nomination through a solid win in the March 2014 primary was cleared. This was the first, very early, rift in the Green-Progressives modus vivendi -- the latter did all they could to disqualify Peñalosa's candidacy, and in February 2014 most of the Progresistas announced they would not participate in the primary so as not to be held to its results, despite one of the three candidates, senator Camilo Romero, being (nominally) from the Progresistas and close to Petro. Enrique Peñalosa won the March 2014 primary, and some Progresistas (Camilo Romero) who had previously been reticent towards with him ended up endorsing him. Before the first round, Petro, who had been removed from office by the Procuraduría and was fighting tooth-and-nail for his political life, endorsed Santos once he was back in office as mayor, even though he had called Santos a liar less than two months before (when Santos had not applied an injunction which would returned him to office); in the second round, he made matters even more official, with three cabinet secretaries resigning to campaign for Santos. In short, while a few Progresistas (Antonio Navarro, Inti Asprilla, Angélica Lozano) had been elected to Congress with the Green Alliance, a separate group of 'city hall' Progresistas behind Petro, including Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillo (his secretary of government at the time), endorsed Santos, in the name of the party.

At the same time, Petro, looking to 2015 (local elections) and 2018, attempted to revive the Progresistas outside the Greens, pressuring the Progresistas city councillors (who were now Greens, post-merger) to rejoin him and leave the Greens -- only months after they had joined them. His attempt to rebuild his movement failed, as no councillor was willing to leave a registered party for an unregistered one (particularly a personalist one, tied to an unpopular term-limited mayor), especially as that would have entailed resigning their seats as councillors by summer 2014 if they were to run as Progresistas in 2015. One of the 8 Progresistas councillor, one of them - Carlos Vicente de Roux, the top candidate in 2011 and one of Petro's closest allies - had broken with the mayor and become very critical of him on several topics; other Progresistas councillors followed suit. Of the 27 aldermen (neighbourhood boards) elected in 2011, only three stuck with Petro to the point of resigning their seats. The lack of any support from his old base did not impede Petro from moving forward: in July, he sent a letter to the CNE officially declaring that he had never joined the Greens, and began concocting plans to resuscitate the Progresistas in preparation for the 2015 local elections. Petro's movement had three mayoral pre-candidates: former housing secretary María Mercedes Maldonado; former journalist and former head of Bogotá's city-owned TV station (Canal Capital) Hollman Morris and former secretary of government Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillo.

In November 2014, Progresistas were officially re-launched around Petro's three mayoral pre-candidates. In other words, the original Progresistas had merged with the Greens and many of their members were now well at home there even if they remained sympathetic to Petro (Navarro, Angélica Lozano, Inti Asprilla, Camilo Romero, Luis Carlos Avellaneda, Jorge Eliécer Guevara, Yezid García etc.), a second Progresistas built around the mayor and his inner circle of city hall confidantes and cabinet members was relaunched. Petro's relaunch irked many sympathizers and elected officials, further dividing his original base of support. One of the main reasons why Progresistas failed almost as soon as it was created is Petro's overblown ego (which leads to caudillismo), delusions of grandeur, abrasive/belligerent personality and micro-managerial style. Greatly confident of his own remarkable intelligence and worth, he insists on controlling and running everything.

In an attempt to gain ballot access through an alliance with a legally registered party, the new Progresistas courted the Movimiento Alternativo Indígena y Social (MAIS), an indigenous leftist party, and an alliance was formalized, but fell through in May. Without any alliance with a registered party, the Progresistas gained ballot access - only in Bogotá - through signatures, registering María Mercedes Maldonado as mayoral candidate and Hollman Morris as top candidate for city council. Maldonado's candidacy was seen as a tactical play by Petro to lay favourable groundwork for his 2018 presidential candidacy, the goal at the time being for her to win over 10% of the vote and help retain a base for Petro's movement in the city. However, with low name recognition in a field with several big-name players, Maldonado's candidacy was a catastrophic failure - she never polled over 1-2% in the polls, and was destined for a brutal humiliation. In September, smelling defeat, Petro revised his strategy - Maldonado dropped out, and the Progresistas endorsed left-wing candidate Clara López, in a last-ditch attempt to save the left in the city (and forgetting past animosities between López and Petro's gang). Petro put the municipal machinery to work for Clara, and despite that, Clara was routed - placing a very poor third with 18.3% of the vote, losing the city for the left (which had held it, under different forms, since Lucho Garzón in 2003) and handing it to the local left's worst enemy, Enrique Peñalosa, who has devoted much of his time in office to undoing Petro's alternative-leftist project (Bogotá Humana) and denouncing Petro at every possible opportunity.

The Progresistas were completely annihilated: their list won 2.4% of the vote (some 58,300 votes) and elected only a single member, Hollman Morris, whose 25,651 preferential votes accounted for over 40% of the list's entire intake (Morris has a trajectory and notoriety of his own, as a prominent investigative journalist and later as head of Canal Capital under Petro). Of the Progresistas' 8 councillors from 2011 - none of whom had rejoined Progresistas 2.0 in 2014, and many of whom had fallen out with the mayor - 6 ran for reelection with the Greens (including Petro's remaining supporters, like Yezid García), and all of them lost. In the races for the neighbourhood boards (JAL), with lists in only a few of the localities, the Progresistas won just 1% and not a single seat. In other words, what remains of Progresistas is a one-man show, a personal vehicle for Petro's 2018 aspirations (which may not even happen - he is currently ineligible because of a $75 million fine from the comptroller general) with no real base in local government, not even in Bogotá. Outside of the city, Petro's former ally Guillermo Jaramillo was elected mayor of Ibagué (Tolima) with the MAIS' endorsement, but he seems to have distanced himself from Petro (and is now focused on local affairs).

* Peñalosa is widely disliked by the left, who see him as a right-wing and an uribista Trojan Horse -- he has longstanding sympathies with uribismo and is on good terms with Uribe, who endorsed him in the 2011 mayoral election.
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« Reply #18 on: February 17, 2017, 04:20:29 PM »


In an attempt to gain ballot access through an alliance with a legally registered party, the new Progresistas courted the Movimiento Alternativo Indígena y Social (MAIS), an indigenous leftist party, and an alliance was formalized, but fell through in May. Without any alliance with a registered party, the Progresistas gained ballot access - only in Bogotá - through signatures, registering María Mercedes Maldonado as mayoral candidate and Hollman Morris as top candidate for city council. Maldonado's candidacy was seen as a tactical play by Petro to lay favourable groundwork for his 2018 presidential candidacy, the goal at the time being for her to win over 10% of the vote and help retain a base for Petro's movement in the city. However, with low name recognition in a field with several big-name players, Maldonado's candidacy was a catastrophic failure - she never polled over 1-2% in the polls, and was destined for a brutal humiliation. In September, smelling defeat, Petro revised his strategy - Maldonado dropped out, and the Progresistas endorsed left-wing candidate Clara López, in a last-ditch attempt to save the left in the city (and forgetting past animosities between López and Petro's gang). Petro put the municipal machinery to work for Clara, and despite that, Clara was routed - placing a very poor third with 18.3% of the vote, losing the city for the left (which had held it, under different forms, since Lucho Garzón in 2003) and handing it to the local left's worst enemy, Enrique Peñalosa, who has devoted much of his time in office to undoing Petro's alternative-leftist project (Bogotá Humana) and denouncing Petro at every possible opportunity.

The Progresistas were completely annihilated: their list won 2.4% of the vote (some 58,300 votes) and elected only a single member, Hollman Morris, whose 25,651 preferential votes accounted for over 40% of the list's entire intake (Morris has a trajectory and notoriety of his own, as a prominent investigative journalist and later as head of Canal Capital under Petro). Of the Progresistas' 8 councillors from 2011 - none of whom had rejoined Progresistas 2.0 in 2014, and many of whom had fallen out with the mayor - 6 ran for reelection with the Greens (including Petro's remaining supporters, like Yezid García), and all of them lost. In the races for the neighbourhood boards (JAL), with lists in only a few of the localities, the Progresistas won just 1% and not a single seat. In other words, what remains of Progresistas is a one-man show, a personal vehicle for Petro's 2018 aspirations (which may not even happen - he is currently ineligible because of a $75 million fine from the comptroller general) with no real base in local government, not even in Bogotá. Outside of the city, Petro's former ally Guillermo Jaramillo was elected mayor of Ibagué (Tolima) with the MAIS' endorsement, but he seems to have distanced himself from Petro (and is now focused on local affairs).

The paradox is that, lacking a political party or any institutional base, Petro retains a pretty substantial base of supporters (with presidential polls showing him at 10-15%) -- although he's a very polarizing figure, with an even larger number of people who dislike him. Petro has support with what he calls his nuevas ciudadanías, new social/civic movements or groups like environmentalists, animal rights activists, LGBT, recyclers etc., groups which are currently working (alongside Progresistas and other leftist parties) to recall Peñalosa (and seem pretty confident of getting the required signatures by this summer). If the anti-establishment mood created by Odebrecht and other scandals remains strong, Petro has a chance, since his main strength as a politician has always been the 'anti-mafias' discourse, and can attract some voters with his alternative left program or his costeño roots. But I think he's a paper tiger - a large potential base (but cancelled out by as many people who would never vote for him) early on, high name recognition early on but no party behind him (who will run for his group for Congress next spring?) and his difficulty to create coalitions (because he's kind of an asshole).
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« Reply #19 on: February 17, 2017, 05:20:05 PM »

An arrest warrant has been issued against the incumbent governor of La Guajira, Wilmer González Brito (U-Cons.), accused of bribery, electoral corruption, procedural fraud and other crimes for his election last year (on November 6). There are compromising audios of him or his people managing the distribution or receipt of millions of pesos in bribes or payments to local political bosses -- money used to buy votes, organize election day busing or otherwise bribe voters. He was elected in a by-election just three months ago, to replace Oneida Pinto (Cambio Radical), elected in 2015 but removed from office last year for registering her candidacy while ineligible (she too is now facing criminal charges, including death threats). Although there will be no by-election until Wilmer is convicted or resigns -- in the meantime there will be a caretaker -- a by-election, the fourth election in four years (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017), is possible.

Wilmer González Brito, the former Liberal mayor of Uribia (1995-1998) and representative (2002-2010), had been the runner-up in the 2014 gubernatorial by-election. Wilmer González is the brother of former Conservative representative José Manuel González (2001), who was arrested in 2011.

As in 2014, he was nominated by the Party of the U and the Conservative Party. Like in 2014, he was supported by the old Nueva Guajira group, currently led by representative Alfredo Deluque (U) because most of its traditional figures are in jail (Deluque’s father, former governor Hernando Deluque) or worried they’ll be there soon (former governor Jorge Pérez Bernier, now facing formal criminal charges for embezzlement as part of a new anti-corruption operation).

Wilmer’s ‘political godmother’ is Cielo Redondo, the cacica of Uribia (where she was mayor 2000-2003 and 2007-2011, and where her son Luis Enrique Solano Redondo is mayor since January), who turned herself in to Colombian authorities in May 2016 facing several criminal charges. She is now under house arrest. She had fled in October 2015 after a failed police operation to arrest her, but being on the run didn’t prevent her son from being elected mayor of Uribia ten days later (defeating Tico Gómez). Cielo Redondo was allegedly the ‘political leader’ of the AUC’s Frente Contrainsurgencia Wayúu.

Wilmer was elected with a, yes, anti-corruption pledge in 2016. If you think his main opponents are better, think again: the main rival political mafia is that of former governor Kiko Gómez (2012-2013), just recently convicted to 55 years in jail for homicide, a group which also includes Oneida Pinto (governor, 2016), Uniguajira rector Carlos Arturo Robles and his guy, Riohacha mayor Fabio Velásquez (CR), recently arrested on corruption charges.

Of nine elected governors since 1991, seven have faced administrative or criminal charges and four of them are currently in jail, including one convicted murderer. All this while children continue to starve to death.



Semana.com has the incriminating audios: http://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/investigacion-contra-gobernador-de-la-guajira-wilmer-gonzalez-brito/515759
El Tiempo has the basic facts: http://www.eltiempo.com/politica/justicia/envian-a-prision-al-gobernador-de-la-guajira-wilmer-gonzalez-brito/16822015
LSV gives a backgrounder and explains what's next: http://lasillavacia.com/historia/se-cayo-gobernador-guajiro-pero-su-cuestionada-madrina-puede-quedar-con-poder-59786
Yours truly has an old really long blog post about La Guajira's tragedy: https://colombianreflections.wordpress.com/2016/11/19/the-tragic-fate-of-la-guajira/
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« Reply #20 on: March 02, 2017, 11:00:08 AM »

Uribe reiterates his view on same-sex marriage:

“Repito que respetamos totalmente la intimidad de las personas. En referencia a las parejas homosexuales he expresado que la sociedad colombiana y sus instituciones, como la Corte Constitucional, deberían buscar un acuerdo sobre una figura legal para estas parejas, que no sea el matrimonio, que debe reservarse para la familia heterosexual, cuya misión es la preservación cualitativa y cuantitativa de la especie humana. Siempre expresé no estar de acuerdo con la adopción por parte de parejas homosexuales".

"I repeat that we fully respect personal intimacy. In reference to homosexual couples I have expressed that Colombian society and its institutions, such as the Constitutional Court, should seek an agreement on a legal arrangement for these couples, other than marriage, which should be reserved for the heterosexual family whose mission is the qualitative and quantitative preservation of the human species. I have always expressed I do not agree with adoption by homosexual couples"

tl;dr: "I hate the gays but I pray for them. Smiley Civil unions but not marriage Smiley (#AtlasModerateBlueDogDem2007). Homosexuals are subhumans."
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« Reply #21 on: March 02, 2017, 01:31:29 PM »
« Edited: March 02, 2017, 01:37:56 PM by Hash »

Gallup's bimonthly poll in the five major cities (the 4 biggest + Bucaramanga) is out and the results are interesting.

Santos approval: 71 (+11) / 24 (-11)
General direction of country: 73 (+11) / 16 (-11)

General highlights...
  • Between the Odebrecht scandal, difficulties and controversies in the implementation of the peace agreement and the VAT increase coming into effect, pessimism and widespread dissatisfaction with politics soars. Last time pessimism was this high and Santos' approval so low was in April 2016.
  • The cause is easily identifiable: corruption. 30% say it is the main problem, ahead of the economy/purchasing power (25%), others (24%) and security (18%). This is the first time corruption ranks first, since the pollster began asking the question (in 2004). Security is the lowest it has been since 18%. 85% say corruption is worsening, 82% say the economy is worsening, 72% say unemployment is worsening (not actually true) and 91% say the cost of living is worsening. For the first time since 2013, a plurality are also saying that they're dissatisfied with their own standard of living.

Of 2018 presidential candidates...
  • The biggest thing to me is that Germán Vargas Lleras' popularity has collapsed: for the first time, he has a net unfavourable rating -- 44% to 40%, a 20 point swing since December. He's been hobbled by the corruption scandals, a viral video of him hitting his bodyguard, general distaste of establishment politicians like him, unfavourable media coverage and by Cambio Radical's La Guajira nightmares; even a xenophobic anti-Venezuelan schoolyard brawl with Diosdado Cabello hasn't saved him! Only a few weeks away from leaving cabinet to launch his campaign, this isn't a good place to start out.
  • Implicated in the Odebrecht scandal, the CD's Óscar Iván Zuluaga's favourability collapses to 28% (-13) and unfavourables reach a high of 52% (+17). If his popularity doesn't recover, it will be hard to mount a presidential campaign.
  • Humberto de la Calle (49/22) and Sergio Fajardo (44/7) remain among the most popular potential candidates, but I have a hunch both are paper tigers. Juan Manuel Galán (38/14) is also popular.
  • Anti-corruption icons Jorge Enrique Robledo (28/10) and Claudia López (38/15) are not affected by the anti-politicians mood.
  • Ayatollah Alejandro Ordóñez is also hurt by the anti-politicians mood: his unfavourables reach 35%, an historic high, and favourables fall to just 22%. Not the numbers one needs to launch a convincing presidential campaign.
  • Of the cabinet ministers expected to resign soon to launch presidential bids, only one of them -- labour minister Clara López, surprisingly, has a net favourable rating (49/30). Agriculture minister Aurelio Iragorri is at 7/19 and interior minister Juan Fernando Cristo falls to 15/26. Not good!
  • Uribe's new wunderkind/'good boy' Iván Duque still isn't taking off -- he's at 11/14. Even Carlos Holmes, the third uribista contender, is better-known (22/24).
  • Gustavo Petro still polarizing. 38/43.

Of politicians and institutions...
  • Álvaro Uribe's unfavourable rating is up 9% to 46%, and his favourables down 8 to 49%. It seems as if the anti-politicians mood and the corruption scandals have even hurt him.
  • All institutions are hurt by voters' crabby mood. Congress' disapproval is a record high 89% (fav. 14%). The Fiscalía (attorney general) is in the red as well, 52% to 41%. All the courts and the judiciary in general continue to have very low ratings -- the ConCourt at 32/56, the judiciary at 12/82 and the Supreme Court at 27/61.
  • Political parties are viewed unfavourably by 85%, and favourably by 9%.
  • The FARC are "more popular than ever" -- seen unfavourably by 77% but favourably by 19%. You will note that this is more popular than political parties, Congress and the judiciary.
  • The traditionally very popular Catholic Church's unfavourables reach a high of 40%. The archdiocese of Cali enraged many by blaming parents for a paedophilia scandal, almost insinuating that the victims of paedo priests were 'asking for it'. Hang the paedos, imo.
  • The military remains the most popular institution, at 68% favourability.

Of the peace process...
  • There is still a 'mood for peace', with 67% (-6) saying that the best solution to the conflict is through negotiations. But a plurality (49%) say the peace process' implementation is on the wrong track.
  • There remains very widespread (65-70%) skepticism that the peace process will bring anything positive in the long run.
  • A large majority (62%) still doubt that the FARC will keep their word. A plurality (50%) now also doubt that the government will keep its word.
  • A large majority (68%) still support peace negotiations with the ELN.

Of international politics...
  • Donald Trump's unfavourable rating in Colombia is 74% (+6) and favourable just 13% (-6), making him less popular than the FARC.
  • For the first time since 2007, most Colombians view the United States unfavourably, at 46%, compared to 44% who still see the US positively. Positive opinions of the US have collapsed by 26% since August 2016, when just 21% disliked the US.
  • Trump is still more popular than Nicolás Maduro, who is disliked by 96%. The US is still more popular than Venezuela, which is disliked by 89%.

Of local affairs...
  • Bogotá mayor Enrique "underground subways are rat-filled piss-smelling tunnels" Peñalosa, who can't get anything right, has a record-high 75% disapproval rating, higher than what his predecessor Gustavo Petro ever had. His approval is a Flanby-like 22%
  • Medellín mayor Federico Gutiérrez more popular than God. 88% approval.
  • Barranquilla mayor Alex Char still manages 85% approval even in face of a major increase in local dissatisfaction
  • Cali mayor Maurice Armitage and Bucaramanga Rodolfo Hernández are 'in the red' (net disapproval) for the first time in their terms
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« Reply #22 on: March 09, 2017, 06:06:17 PM »

Óscar Iván Zuluaga effectively dropped out (officially: 'postponed') of the race yesterday because of his implication in the Odebrecht scandal, after a meeting with Uribe.

Seemingly, he will be replaced in the uribista lineup by senator María del Rosario Guerra de la Espriella, who has been a very close ally of Zuluaga from the beginning and is also close to Uribe himself, who placed her second on the party's closed list in 2014 and gave her significant power to build up the party's regional bases in 2013-4. She was Uribe's minister of communications (2006-2010). Guerra is from one of the most powerful (but divided) political clans of Sucre department (Caribbean) - her father and uncle are the two patriarchs of the clan and both have been governors and senators, one of her brother has been a Cambio Radical senator since 2006 and a cousin is a Opción Ciudadana senator since 2014; through her mother she is related to the de la Espriella clan, powerful in Córdoba and Sucre, and her cousin, former senator Miguel Alfonso de la Espriella, was convicted for parapolitics (as a signatory of the infamous Pacto de Ralito with the AUC in 2001). She is married to the president of Fedepalma, the lobby/organization of palm oil growers (an industry associated with paramilitarism and forced displacement).
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« Reply #23 on: March 09, 2017, 06:08:41 PM »

On the topic of political clans in the Caribbean, here is a fascinating graphic which basically shows how essentially all the leading political elites in the Caribbean today and in the past are inbred marry among one another:

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« Reply #24 on: March 13, 2017, 03:13:13 PM »

An anonymous senator quoted by El Espectador renders a very accurate portrayal of Colombian congressional politics:

“Las mayorías siempre son a ras porque hay un sector de congresistas que van cinco minutos y salen a cobrar en los ministerios, o se la pasan en Palacio en busca de entidades. Operan como oficinas bancarias: buscando contratos. Para mí, lo que hay es una disidencia concertada. Un día lloran los conservadores, luego los de la U y después los liberales. Ante los medios todos aman la paz y en privado piden cuotas”.

"The majorities are always tight because there is a group of congressmen who leave for five minutes and go collect [cobrar = collect payments, fees, salaries] in the ministries or spend time in the presidential palace in search of entities [patronage appointments]. They operate like banks: looking for contracts. For me, what there is is a concerted dissidence. One day the Conservatives cry, then the U and then the Liberals. Before the media they all love peace and in private they ask for quotas ['bureaucratic quotas' = patronage appointments which are 'owed']"
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