Perspectives & Scenarios for the Presidential Elections...:

PERSPECTIVES & SCENARIOS FOR THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN
Ruben Dario Utria

The current presidential campaign in Colombia has taken an unseen and still undefined turn towards a significant change in the attitudes and political preferences of the citizens and public opinion in general, as well as in the generational sectors disposed to participate and in the methods of mobilization of voters, including advanced telecommunications and the so-called cybernetic “social networks.”

But knowing the political-electoral history of the country, one can affirm that there are no fundamental motives to hope that such change will come. If the generational air of renovation, agitated for in the media, and the political-electoral usefulness of the cited networks are effective, the traditional oligarchic establishment will not stand by with their arms crossed contemplating the loss of their political and economic power. To the contrary, it is highly probable that they will react as they have for most of the two centuries of republican life: in the first place with civil war, and in second place using one of their three favorite traditional options, which are in full effect.

The first is the use of fraud, the buying and stealing of votes, bribery, the paramilitary territorial control, and the corresponding forced displacement of the potentially adverse electorate, as in the elections of 2002 and 2006. The second is co-optation, which has traditionally consisted in tolerance of the adversary but with conditions, and taking the government from the inside, following the popular tactic of the “Trojan Horse” and inspired by the “Lampedusian” strategy of accepting the change in order to preserve the status quo. The initiation of the National Front that constitutionally excluded during four periods (1958 – 1974) the participation of all the contrary political forces against the establishment. The third is the open use of violence. That is, the physical elimination of the candidate compromised with some grade of political change, as we have seen in the cases of General Uribe Uribe in 1914; Jorge Eliecer Gaitan in 1948; Luis Carlos Galan in 1989; Carlos Pizarro, Bernardo Jaramillo and Jaime Pardo Leal in 1990; and Alvaro Gomez in 1995.

The first option is the most expeditious path because the electoral machinery is already installed and institutionalized from the last two parliamentary elections, as recognized recently by the Electoral Council and the Registry of Voters, and has been denounced permanently in Congress and sanctioned by the judgements of the “Parapolitica.” The second is also viable because it counts on a candidate – Antanas Mockus – with many options provided by the establishment and with an unequivocal right-wing bent, a neoliberal economic vision, addicted to external political and economic dependence, and directly surrounded by known personalities of the same lineage and with electoral patrimony, but whose capacity for action when confronted with the grave national problems and ability to govern is highly doubtful. And the third option counts with the thousands of hired killers, poorly trained and protected, the underlying politics and the infrastructure of rural and urban violence that has abandoned democratic security, the phantasm of international terrorism, the right-wing nationalism against neighboring countries, and the possibility of placing blame on subversives, as occurred in 1948. Additionally, it counts with the institutionalized system of impunity and tolerance of international power.

The first two options are also electorally viable because, on the one hand, the traditional forces and their candidates – Vargas, Sanin & Pardo – have returned to their traditional right-wing fold before the eventual menace to their privileges. On the other hand, Petro – frustrated in his elusive proposal for centrist coalitions – and the other candidates – without options and excluded from the media scene – will have to continue to act as trained bears in a circus. It's also possible that they will be absorbed by the establishment.

Confronted with this frustrating perspective there is little that Colombians can hope for in the current electoral contest because, additionally, there is no alternative political force that can close the path of the establishment. The one force which was developing rapidly – el Polo Democratico – lamentably fractured due to the impact of personal attitudes.

translated by Brian Oelberg
Bogota – 14 May 2010