The Colombian presidential election is being held on May 27. Colombia is the third most populous country in Latin America, and is one of the main South American elections in 2018. Its politics are messy and enigmatic, at times fascinating, at times dispiriting, at times infuriating but never boring.
As expected, coverage of this important election in the foreign Anglosphere media remains near-zero, of very poor quality or blatantly biased and selective. I have written this thorough, but still incomplete, guide to all candidates who may find their pictures on the ballot in May. The field will be 'cleared out' following two open presidential primaries, coinciding with congressional elections, on March 11.
I am a self-proclaimed specialist on Colombian politics and elections. I am doing my MA research on the parapolítica scandal in two Colombian regions in the 2002 congressional elections.
RIGHT/FAR-RIGHT
'Coalition of the No' (Uribe-Pastrana-Ordóñez) (PRIMARY MARCH 11)
After much uncertainty, infighting, ultimatums, hostile communiqués and thinly-veiled threats, the right-wing/far-right 'Coalition of the No' - uniting the three main leaders of the victorious No campaign in the 2016 peace plebiscite, former presidents Uribe and Pastrana, and deposed former inspector general Ordóñez - will become a reality. One single candidate will be chosen from a current field of three in an open primary on March 11. It is unclear whether or not the runner-up would automatically become the candidate's running-mate.
Iván Duque (Centro Democrático): Uribe's candidate, recently anointed by a series of three polls (a farcical popularity contest/special edition of 'The Bachelor'), who - like every other uribista ever - will rely on Uribe's personal popularity and aura to carry him to victory, first in March and then in May/June. A senator since 2014, Duque is young (41) and is using his age as one of his main selling point, to compensate for his lack of political experience (no ministerial experience, one-term congressman). He does comes from a political family (his father, Iván Duque Escobar, was a Liberal politician from Antioquia who notably served as Minister of Mines and Energy under Betancur in the 1980s and National Civil Registrar from 1999 to 2002) and he has some 'relevant' professional technocratic experience, having worked at the IDB for 9 years between 2001 and 2010.
A relative moderate within uribismo, the far-right furibista extremists (represented by former minister-turned-radio host-because-he-can't-hold-office-for-being-a-crook Fernando Londoño) are suspicious of him, viewing him as a potential Trojan horse and/or susceptible to betraying Uribe like Santos did. Nevertheless, 'a relative moderate' here is very much like today's so-called 'moderate Republicans' - they hold to party line and dogma but do so with a smile and more polished language. Duque's stance on the peace agreement is 'ni trizas ni risas' - neither scissors nor laughs/smiles - which basically means 'keep the good, get rid of the bad', without bothering to explain how they would do that. In reality, it means keeping the ex-FARC away from the guns but not doing any structural reforms to prevent future violence. Duque does have a fairly detailed and well-articulated coherent platform consisting of 162 proposals, built around the traditional huevitos of uribismo - security, 'austere state', private investment, gap-filling rudimentary 'social cohesion' - and generic right-wing ideas (tax simplification, free trade, fiscal responsibility, 'rationalization', entrepreneurship). He is the quintessential 'modern' centre-right candidate - young, slick, smooth talker, adept at political marketing strategies. His gimmick is the 'orange economy' (creative economy) and everything 'high tech' - incessantly boasting Big Data, digitalized-everything, e-government, new technologies etc.
Marta Lucía Ramírez (Ind./ex-Cons.): Now former president Andrés Pastrana's candidate, Marta Lucía Ramírez has political experience - as foreign trade minister to Pastrana (1998-2002), Uribe's first defence minister (2002-2003), senator (2006-2009) and Conservative presidential candidate in 2014. In 2014, she got 15.5% and nearly 2 million votes in the first round despite lacking the support of most of the Conservative caucus, which didn't want her as candidate in the first place. She endorsed uribista candidate Zuluaga in the runoff, and got him to somewhat moderate his stances on the peace process as a result. Her strong result in 2014, combined with a generally positive image in public opinion, has made her a strong presidential contender although she isn't really taking off in the polls. With execrable relations with the Conservative bosses, she left the party with fracas in 2017 and obtained ballot access through signatures.
She is the least beholden to Uribe - she opposed his 'second reelection' and marked a certain independence/distance from uribismo afterwards - and may hold a grudge against him for unceremoniously firing her as defence minister in 2003. She opposed the peace agreement in the plebiscite, although her opposition was perhaps one of the more 'constructive' of the entire No campaign. Like Duque, she is relatively moderate and doesn't want to fight culture wars, while her stance on the peace agreement is a similar non-committal vague opposition. Her platform isn't developed yet (and is resorting to crowdsourcing ideas), but will most likely consist of centre-right platitudes and valence issues, much like Duque. Her selling points, compared to Duque, will be her political experience, gender and greater independence from Uribe. Her difficulty is that she has no strong machine behind her - pastranismo does not exist outside of Pastrana's mushy brain. She was most resistant to the open primary, with demanding that Ordóñez not participate and that the candidacy be resolved through other means (a poll), but she ultimately gave in without getting much in exchange for now.
Alejandro Ordóñez (Ind./ex-Cons.): The most extremist and conservative of all candidates, Ordóñez is a lefebvriste integrist Catholic/theocrat who recently reiterated that 'burning books is a pedagogical act' (he burned books as a university student), so the epithet 'theocrat' or nickname 'Ayatollah' is not really editorializing or an exaggeration on my part for once. Ordóñez is a former member of the Council of State (2000-2008) and Inspector General (2009-2016), removed from office as inspector general by the Council of State in 2016 for corruption (clientelism and nepotism) to secure his reelection to the job in 2012. As inspector general, Ordóñez went after 'corrupt politicians' without mercy - or so he wants us to believe, because many of his disciplinary sanctions (removal from office and ineligibility for public office) were selective, biased, disproportionate and often motivated by his belief that left-wingers should not be able to hold office. Although he also imposed tough disciplinary sanctions on corrupt uribista politicians (which still creates a bit of unease within uribismo), he is most famous for his disproportionate and extreme disciplinary sanctions against left-wing politicians like Gustavo Petro and Piedad Córdoba, while ignoring parapolíticos and turning a blind eye to other corruption (like the first signs that Odebrecht was raining cash left right and centre). And, of course, he was himself removed from office for being corrupt - although that hasn't kept him for making 'drain the swamp' a core focus of his campaign.
Ordóñez launched his campaign explicitly saying that he wants to 'imitate' Donald Trump. Ordóñez is virulently anti-peace agreement, using the typical language of the Colombian far-right (surrendering the country to terrorism, hidden 'gender ideology' etc.), designed to appeal to furibistas suspicious of Duque's moderation. His other core focus is hardline social conservatism - no abortion whatsoever, homophobic conspiracy theories about 'gender ideology', 'family first' - which appeals both to his own integrist Catholic base and evangelical Christian fundamentalists. His first running mate (now dumped, having served his purpose) was an evangelical pastor, David Name Orozco, who is also from one of the most powerful business and political clans of the Caribbean (his father is a 'super-contractor' in Barranquilla, his cousin is Partido de la U senator José David Name). Name Orozco compared the peace agreement to 'rewarding Hitler'. Thanks to Name Orozco's networks (among others), Ordóñez submitted 2.18 million signatures for ballot access (although only 800,000 or so were validated), the second most of any 'candidate by signatures'. He is accompanied by a creepy bunch of religious fundamentalists and homophobes who imitate his dressing style (suspenders). Although he left the Conservative Party in 2017, he has the sympathy or support of some Conservative bosses (like retiring senator and party director Hernán Andrade), and he has called on party activists to support him.
Vargas Lleras (#Mejor Vargas Lleras/Cambio Radical)
Germán Vargas Lleras ('Ind.'/CR): Vargas Lleras is a career politician, another product of the old Bogotan political elite (maternal grandson of former president Carlos Lleras Restrepo, 1966-1970), who has been a fixture of Colombian politics since the late 1990s and has been dreaming of the presidency for a decade. He already ran for president in 2010, doing relatively well with about 10% of the vote. Vargas Lleras is the epitome of the todo vale - anything goes, the means justify the ends in every single case. Vargas Lleras wants to win the presidency using traditional means: a strong, national alliance of regional caciques and their clientelist machines, without any regard for how nasty or criminal these regional caciques are as long as they can provide votes. Vargas Lleras is a sly political operator with years of experience in the nasty tricks and corrupt alliances which have characterized Colombian politics for decades, and as a quintessential shameless opportunist he will be willing to sell his daughter into slavery if that would win him votes. Unfortunately for him, urban public opinion isn't very keen on that sort of old politics, so Vargas Lleras also needs to pretend that he is a modern, independent centre-right conservative with a well-defined and thorough policy agenda accompanied by presentable allies - so instead of getting on the ballot through his political party, which has been involved in countless sordid criminal and corrupt alliances over the years, he got ballot access 'by signatures' with his own movement, #Mejor Vargas Lleras (yes, with the hashtag). He beat his own very ambitious target, submitting a massive 5.5 million signatures - obtained, of course, through clientelism and Cambio Radical's local machines. He was a popular vice president - constructing an image of a 'builder' with the hard hat - with a laser-like focus on housing and transportation infrastructure (transportation isn't a good sell right now, with mass corruption in the landmark '4G highways' projects or bridges collapsing or about to collapse). But he suddenly became very unpopular after leaving vice president, attributed in part to a Dec. 2016 video of him hitting a bodyguard on the head (the coscorrón incident) which revealed his nasty temper and explosive personality to the public. He has been trying to appear as a 'nicer' guy, 'laughing along' at the memes of his Addams family-like candidacy announcement video or creating an Instagram account for his dog Mancho Vargas.
Despite having been Santos' vice president, Vargas Lleras has moved (back) to the right, opposing or criticizing the implementation of key parts of the peace agreement and trying to challenge uribismo for 'No' voters. Although Uribe and Vargas Lleras have been arch-enemies since around 2009 and were no longer on speaking terms, they have begun to patch things up - exchanging kind words and phony compliments about one another, 'coincidentally' meeting over a breakfast coffee in Manizales, presaging an alliance in the second round (if only one of them of makes it). As noted above, Vargas Lleras - like in 2010 - is making a point of slowly rolling out, with great pomp before crowds of elites and 'experts', a detailed platform with clear proposals. Unsurprisingly, it is a very right-wing platform: corporate tax cuts, re-starting the extractive 'mining locomotive' (by reducing popular consultation requirements and controlling citizen-initiated local referendums), 'austere and efficient state' (literally one of Uribe's huevitos), tough on crime punitive justice etc.
Other right-wingers
Juan Carlos Pinzón (Ind./ex-U): Former defence minister (2011-2015) and ambassador to the US (2015-2017). Juan Manuel Santos was his political mentor, and obtained all his political jobs thanks to Santos, but because Santos is toxic, Pinzón has betrayed his old mentor and launched his campaign - leaving the Partido de la U and running as an independent - on the right, criticizing the peace agreement and how the peace process was negotiated, most recently claiming that he actually voted No in 2016 and that if he hadn't been there as defence minister then 'the armed forces would have been negotiated [away]'. Given that Pinzón was his private secretary and vice-minister of defence Santos - who has been staying out of the spotlight for months now - is understandably rather angry about all this. Unfortunately for Pinzón, the anti-peace agreement field is already saturated by more prominent candidates this year, and Pinzón's inescapable past (Santos protégé turned traitor) doesn't really appeal to anyone. He he is qualified for the ballot as an independent, although his polling numbers are in the dumps and show little sign of improving. He met with around 15 Conservative congressmen in December, part of the Conservative Party's 'casting' to decide on who to endorse (they'd be stupider than they already are if they allied with an irrelevance like Pinzón). Pathetically desperate for attention, he has published his personal phone number on Twitter and told people to call him with their questions and comments. I wonder how many prank calls he has had. I also wonder what his goal is in running to get 1% of the vote in the end, if he makes it to the end.
Viviane Morales (Somos/ex-Liberal): 'The' Christian evangelical candidate, although there is a very strong possibility that she is ineligible and that her candidacy will be refused. A convert to evangelical Christianity as a teenager, Morales was elected to the House in Bogotá in 1991 (for the evangelical Christian Union party) and reelected in 1994 (as a Liberal). In the House, Morales was one of the main proponents of the 1994 religious liberty law (which extended the Catholic Church's exclusive privileges to other religious groups). She was a strong supporter of President Samper during the Proceso 8.000, and gained notoriety by leading a tutela ('writ for the protection of fundamental rights') against the Supreme Court's decision to investigate the congressmen who voted for acquittal for possible prevarication; this tutela went all the way up to the Constitutional Court which set a precedent by ruling in favour of parliamentary immunity (for votes and opinions). She 'jumped' to the Senate in 1998, with a small Christian movement allied to the Liberals, but didn't run for reelection because of health problems in 2002. While being outside elected politics, she - like all other Colombian politicians who take 'hiatuses' - kept her name in the game, and unsuccessfully tried to return as a Liberal candidate for Senate (but won less than 4,000 votes, compared to over 41,000 in 1998). Morales was elected Attorney General by the Supreme Court in December 2010, ending over a year of deadlock between the judiciary and the executive over the election of the AG. As AG, she handled several 'hot' investigations against former Uribe administration officials, which earned her the ire of uribismo, who began claiming that they were the targets of 'political persecution'. Her election as AG was invalidated by the Council of State in February 2012 because the Supreme Court had modified its own rules about quorums to elect her, and she resigned days later. However, with her renewed public notoriety and carrying the promise of a 'captive' evangelical electorate, she was highly sought after and ran for Senate as a Liberal in 2014. She was elected with 54,000 votes. As senator, she became identified with social conservative causes - she led a very controversial citizen-initiated referendum to ban same-sex adoption, with gathered over 2 million signatures and was presented to Congress in 2016, raising a lot of passions on both sides. Although her discriminatory referendum passed the Senate, when it reached the first commission of the House in May 2017, the government pulled out all the stops to kill it, and it was 'archived' (tabled). Her referendum's defeat turned her against the government, and she also began opposing (or at least being very critical of) the peace agreement, which she had initially supported.
Buoyed by the support of evangelical churches, she announced her presidential candidacy within the Liberal Party in July 2017 -- but she had ceased being politically useful to the Liberals and instead presented the 'threat' of flooding a Liberal primary with a million 'captive' evangelicals. So the Liberal 'establishment' decided to impose a 'manifesto of liberal values' on all candidates wishing to participate in a primary... a manifesto which was coincidentally focused on social liberal issues (like LGBT rights) which she famously opposes. Obviously, she refused to sign and called it an attack on her faith and a cheap political ploy to exclude her, and vowed to keep her candidacy alive through other means. The problem - still unresolved - is that the law bans an incumbent officeholder from running with a party other than that with which they were originally elected unless they resigned their seat at least 12 months prior to the election (which she did not do), failing to do that is a case of 'dual membership' which is proscribed by law and grounds for ineligibility. Morales thinks she has found a way out -- she has resigned her seat as a Liberal senator and will be the presidential candidate of the newly (re-)recognized 'Somos' party (a revival of convicted parapolítico Álvaro Araújo Castro's ALAS party), although this will become a legal battle and, if the law is taken literally, her candidacy will be invalidated. Her argument is that the Liberal manifesto violated her constitutional right to be elected. Her 'candidacy' is a way to keep her name in the news until March/April (when a decision is expected), and the speculation is that she may eventually ally with Germán Vargas Lleras and help him compete for the evangelical vote with the 'coalition of the No' (he has already siphoned off the Castellanos couple's International Charismatic Mission pyramid scheme church from the CD).
As a final note: Viviane's second husband (married 2000, divorced 2008 and re-married in 2011) is Carlos Alonso Lucio, a rather intriguing man who has spent much of his life at the margins of legality and illegality: he is a former M-19 guerrillero who was then a left-wing senator in the 1990s, until he fled the country to Cuba escaping an arrest warrant for fraud and false accusation (charges were later dropped), returning to Colombia clandestinely and making contact with the ELN guerrilla and being kidnapped by Carlos Castaño's AUC (who later turned him over to authorities). He then became an adviser to the paramilitaries during the 2003-2006 para demobilization process, allegedly without the government's authorization (this shady episode also involves rumours of Libyan and Venezuelan contacts and money). He has now turned into a kooky Protestant preacher and was his wife's key ally in her referendum, writing a book about 'the gay power' bitching about 'political correctness'.
CENTRE / CENTRE-LEFT
Coalition Colombia ('ni-ni')
This 'neither santista nor uribista' (ni-ni) coalition formed by Claudia López (Greens), Jorge Robledo (Polo Democrático) and Sergio Fajardo (Compromiso Ciudadano) has defied the odds and internal tensions to formally define its candidate: Fajardo, now one of the favourites.
Sergio Fajardo (Compromiso Ciudadano): Fajardo is a mathematician, former mayor of Medellín (2004-2007) and governor of Antioquia (2012-2015). He is an independent who has made opposition to traditional politics, clientelism and corruption the trademarks of his political career, an image which in his case is also backed up by a concrete positive record both as mayor and governor. His term as mayor coincided with Medellín's much-vaunted and internationally acclaimed transformation from one of the world's most dangerous cities into a new model for urban planning and innovation (this is an embellished image which now tends to overlook that Medellín still has many problems and is still a very rough city in parts). During his term as mayor, homicide rates dropped significantly, the city's public finances were sanitized, educational and cultural infrastructure was expanded and the municipality launched several programs to support reintegration (of demobilized paramilitaries), the youth and entrepreneurs. He received several local and foreign awards and honours for his work as mayor. As governor, education was one of his major priorities, under the slogan Antioquia la más educada (Antioquia the most educated), promising to open 80 'educational parks' and managing to deliver on two-thirds of that, as well as opening two new campuses of the University of Antioquia and expanding scholarships. Fajardo enjoyed stratospheric approval ratings as mayor and governor, often hovering in the 80-90% range. As mayor/governor, he was somewhat similar to Antanas Mockus and Enrique Peñalosa in Bogotá in the 1990s: 'anti-politics'/'anti-establishment' centrist reformist independents from academia/civil society with a discourse centred around ethics, morality, anti-corruption, civic culture, inclusion and the revitalization of public spaces. Like Mockus, Fajardo has wanted to remain 'clean' and resisted alliances with traditional politicians and parties (unlike Peñalosa, who allied with Uribe in 2011 and CR in 2015). As his candidacy has emerged among the favourites, a number of lesser-known mini-scandals, controversies or policy failures from his gubernatorial and mayoral terms are starting to emergence on social media.
His style of 'doing politics' is somewhat unusual - both in terms of discourse and presentation (he often explains stuff as a mathematician) and political strategy (indecisiveness and weak at forming lasting alliances), which has in the past limited his national ambitions. He is also rather egotistical and a fairly poor 'team player', as most recently evidenced by his threats to break up the coalition if there was a primary in March. His previous presidential bid in 2010, when he got too cocky because of good polls, fell apart after his movement's list for Congress did very poorly in the congressional elections, forcing him to become Antanas Mockus' running-mate instead. At a time when corruption is one of the main issues of the day, Fajardo and his coalition are among the most credible and are an attractive anti-establishment option. Of the 'trio', he was the most electable and centrist option - although the left and right would contend that his 'centrism' means that he is indecisive, intentionally vague and non-committal on most issues ('ni chicha ni limona'). His popularity and standing in the polls is, in good part, built on his ability to be anything and everything to everyone, by being inoffensive and indecisive. Nevertheless, he seems to have learned his lesson from 2010 and is now a better team player, although the coalition would not have happened without Claudia López and Jorge Robledo's unusual self-sacrifice.
Fajardo is a centrist reformist whose obsessions have been education (he is a former prof and academic) and corruption/ethics. Fajardo has typically had good ties with the Antioquia business elite (the powerful Grupo Empresarial Antioqueño, key campaign financiers), and was on cordial terms with Antioquia's other political giant - Álvaro Uribe - although Uribe has now taken to attacking Fajardo as a 'radical leftist'. The coalition's 'programmatic agreement' remains vague - fighting corruption and clientelism, education, right to healthcare, social policy which creates jobs and opportunities, women's rights, commitment with biodiversity and natural resources, prosperous and fair economy, dynamic modern agriculture, modern infrastructure, culture and tourism as motors of development, reconciliation, global integration and justice/security. The full version of the program provides more substance, but remains filled with good intentions or uncontroversial valence issues/aspirations without going into the specifics. The program reflects compromises between its members on controversial issues (free trade, mining, healthcare reform, land), indefinitely delayed through 'commissions' or 'dialogue'. The overall direction of the program is progressive, socially liberal and centre-left -- somewhat similar to Justin Trudeau (although in Colombia Fajardo is now compared to Emmanuel Macron -- both are pretty liberal on economic issues, although Fajardo needs to walk a tight rope on economics).
Liberal Party
The Liberals had their primary in November to pick their candidate. The party is a shadow of its former self. For its immediate future, it faces several problems: the party's electoral support is much weaker (but this has been the case since 2002) and requires alliances with other parties and groups to win, its status as a 'traditional party' still including several nasty old clientelist machines makes it more unattractive both to voters and potential coalition partners and César Gaviria's leadership is divisive and already faces strong internal opposition led by defeated presidential candidate Juan Fernando Cristo. Opposition to Gaviria's iron-fist control of the party led senator and 'party elder' Horacio Serpa to withdraw his name from the senatorial list - which added to Juan Manuel Galán's refusal to run for reelection. For now, these internal disputes have not affected Humberto de la Calle's presidential candidacy, as Cristo's 'Liberal dissidence' still supports him (and has in fact accused Gaviria, who strongly backed de la Calle in the primary, of secretly holding out for an alliance with Vargas Lleras). But if de la Calle's candidacy appears weak and isolated, Liberal caciques may begin abandoning him for stronger candidates, as they did with Rafael Pardo in 2010.
Humberto de la Calle: I already wrote a full profile of him last fall, so here it is. To summarize: de la Calle is a career politician who has been in politics since the 1980s, following a rather typical career path up until the 1990s/2000, at which point he basically dropped out of circulation to re-appear years later as the government's chief negotiator in the peace negotiations with the FARC in Cuba, which is now the main draw of his candidacy. He unsuccessfully ran for president in 1994, losing the Liberal primary to Ernesto Samper, very reluctantly agreeing to be his vice president in a marriage of convenience which was made impossible by the Proceso 8.000 and led de la Calle to resign in 1996. He supported Pastrana in 1998 (and served as his interior minister for a year) and was initially sympathetic to Uribe in 2002-3, like many gavirista (centre-right) Liberals. De la Calle received widespread praise for his role as chief negotiator. Not only did he secure an historic peace agreement in the end, but he was crucial throughout the actual peace talks in ensuring the government spoke with a single voice, in keeping the negotiations focused, in resolving disputes and controversies and ensuring that the talks didn’t break down during the several times where they seemed to be on the verge of collapse (and with everybody, including Bogotá, ready to pull the plug). Somewhat naturally, the imperatives of defending 'his baby' (the peace agreement) against its enemies in the context of a difficult implementation and its unpopularity with a large segment of the electorate led de la Calle to run for president. Given the unpopularity of traditional parties and his own discomfort around traditional caciques and machines, de la Calle is trying to appear as a 'civic' candidate of a broad, independent coalition with students, businessmen, social movements and others to defend the peace process over and above individual parties -- while still not neglecting the Liberals' crucial machinery. There is an big difference between the fine and respectable de la Calle and Gaviria's list of congressional candidates which includes a lot of more traditional caciques and machine politicians.
De la Calle will campaign to defend the peace agreement, and - unlike the 'critical' right which sees it merely as a demobilization deal with an illegal group - use it as the groundwork to transform the country, by improving education and healthcare and reducing poverty. While it is being released in stages, his platform is socially liberal, progressive and centre-left built around the theme of peace: poverty reduction, environmental protection, job creation, improving educational opportunities, anti-corruption, good government etc.
De la Calle rejected participation in a 'left-wing primary' in March with Clara López, Gustavo Petro and Carlos Caicedo and instead tried to ally with Sergio Fajardo, but Fajardo isn't interested. Just a few days ago, de la Calle announced that his running-mate would be Clara López, who dropped out of the race. He is trying to shore up his support on the left, weaken Petro and compete with Fajardo for the centrist/centre-left 'pro-peace' and 'anti-corruption' vote. It is a somewhat risky move which carries risks, but it is not a bad move.
LEFT
'Coalition of decency' (PRIMARY MARCH 11)
Clara López Gustavo Petro and Carlos Caicedo - who unsuccessfully reached out to Fajardo and de la Calle - will support the 'list of decency' for Senate in March, a common list formed by Petro's supporters, Clara López's supporters and the small left-wing parties ASI, MAIS and UP. Confusingly, Clara López, having failed to convince de la Calle to join this coalition and hypothetical primary, decided to withdraw from the primary and, days later, drop out to become de la Calle's running mate. Gustavo Petro will win this primary very easily, but may quickly find himself isolated and running out of oxygen. Petro is one of the current favourites/frontrunners, but is toxic and most likely unelectable.
Gustavo Petro (Colombia Humana/Progresistas): Petro is the anti-establishment populist left candidate appealing to the indignados while terrifying the right, providing them with their ideal boogeyman. He is a former M-19 guerrillero, who served in the House (1991-1994, 1998-2006) and Senate (2006-2010) and most famously as mayor of Bogotá (2012-2015). He was the left-wing Polo Democrático's presidential candidate in 2010. Petro is a polarizing figure, who has some passionate supporters on social media (second only in their cultist devotion to uribistas) but also passionate 'haters' on the right who will panic and collectively lose their shit at the prospect of Petro becoming president, which the right feels would really be peak castrochavismo. Petro, some kind of Colombian Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is a complicated figure to understand - an outstanding legislator, but a poor executive/administrator; at times a 'leftist firebrand' and at other moments a 'responsible leftist'; laudable ideas (at least to left-wingers and progressives) but poor execution. Elected mayor of Bogotá in 2011 with a strong and credible anti-corruption campaign, having been one of the main critics of Samuel Moreno's corrupt administration (breaking with his own party, the Polo, and eventually leaving), he came in with one of the most ambitious left-wing urban agendas (humanism, environmentalism, social justice, participatory democracy, equity, public control and interventionism) but left office with low popularity, a mixed and incomplete record and a successor who has dedicated himself to undoing all his achievements and criticizing his record. Part of his relative failure as mayor is because Petro is arrogant, narcissistic, controlling and egocentric - he thinks that he is brilliant (incessantly repeating the word 'paradigms'), loves the sound of his own voice and has an over inflated ego. He is not a 'team player' -- he can't deal with a large political party where he is only one among several leaders and voices, he is very bad at creating and holding a team together (his cabinet in Bogotá, which began with big names like Antonio Navarro Wolff, disintegrated very quickly and was characterized by very high turnover) and he is unwilling to sacrifice personal ambitions in the name of a collective cause (unlike, for all his faults, Jorge Robledo). The results of that personality can also be seen in the total and utter political failure of the movement he created after leaving the Polo in 2011, Progresistas - which is basically little more than a personal vehicle for his ambitions. He does well in polls, because he remains the most famous and visible figure of the Colombian left, but his presidential ambitions are limited both by questions of his eligibility (because of a disciplinary sanction imposed by the district comptroller, which he is challenging) and his low popularity (unfavourables tied to, or higher than, his favourables).
Petro's obsession is 'the mafias' - he became famous with his debates on political scandals, paramilitarism and parapolítica in Congress under Uribe. He lacks an actual platform, instead writing on his blog, which serves to attack his chosen rivals (Vargas and Fajardo) and defend the record of his mayoral administration (Bogotá Humana). He contends that it is impossible to end corruption without changing the economic model, although what his alternative actually is besides "agriculture, industry and renewable energies will be strategic sectors" and "resource extraction is bad". Basically, however, his platform is to do in Colombia what he did in Bogotá - hence the name of his movement 'Colombia Humana', after 'Bogotá Humana'. This means things like free post-secondary education, public universal healthcare, publicly-owned public services, agrarian reform, '21st century protectionism', restorative justice, zero-carbon economy and decriminalization of drugs.
Carlos Caicedo (Fuerza Ciudadana): Former mayor of Santa Marta (2012-2015) who submitted 2 million signatures to gain ballot access (the third most of any independent candidate), flying under the radar of the Bogotá-centric media. An opponent of the traditional 'mafias' and criminal political clans which have dominated politics in Santa Marta and Magdalena, Caicedo gained political status locally as a competent and effective rector of the Universidad del Magdalena (1996-2006), and his political ambitions began to worry certain political clans, who used their influence in judicial and disciplinary bodies (Fiscalía, departmental comptroller, courts etc.) to go after him - he was arrested in 2006 and sentenced by a local judge in 2007, but acquitted on appeal to the superior tribunal in Bogotá in 2011. He was elected mayor of Santa Marta in 2012, and his right-hand man was elected to succeed him in 2015 - and Caicedo has retained bureaucratic and political influence in the municipal administration (often replicating the same clientelist methods he claims to oppose). Caicedo and the mayor of Santa Marta were arrested in November 2017 as he was about to fly to the capital to submit his signatures, but later released. This new case against him is, like previous ones, strongly suspected of being a politically-orchestrated 'persecution' against Caicedo. Caicedo's 2 million signatures were obtained primarily in Magdalena and other Caribbean departments, in good part thanks to the clientelistic methods of the municipal administration in Santa Marta. The mayor of Santa Marta was suspended for three months by the Procuraduría in November for 'political participation' (illegally participating in political campaign activities as a public official) in Caicedo's favour. Caicedo's signatures offer him a strong bargaining chip against two allies with national name recognition, of which Caicedo still has very little. His discourse is very, very similar to Petro - anti-establishment populist left, 'the mafias' etc. - but with a Caribbean regionalist flavour (although Petro was also born in the Caribbean region and still has lots of support there).
Other left
Two candidates who, for now, appear unlikely to join any alliance before the first round.
Piedad Córdoba (Poder Ciudadano): Piedad Córdoba is a former Liberal senator (1994-2010) and highly controversial - and unpopular - figure of the Colombian left, who is seeking to make a political comeback seven years after Ordóñez removed her from office and declared her ineligible to hold public office for allegedly promoting and collaborating with the FARC on the basis of files found on Raúl Reyes' computer (when he was killed in a cross-border raid in violation of Ecuadorian sovereignty in 2008). In 2016, the Council of State dropped two disciplinary sanctions against her - the one for 'Farc-política' for a lack of evidence and a broken chain of custody, which was predictable from the moment that Ordóñez issued his ruling in November 2010. Since 2002, Piedad Córdoba had become famous - and very unpopular in Colombia - for her vociferous opposition to President Uribe, with her opinions and statements (like that 'progressive governments should break diplomatic relations with Colombia' or that Uribe was elected 'by the mafia, by paramilitaries, by assassins') which rang as unpatriotic and 'subversive'. A close friend and ally of Hugo Chávez, the two worked on 'humanitarian exchanges' (release of hostages) with the FARC, and while she secured the release of several hostages, her proximity to Chávez and a controversial picture of her all smiles in Caracas with members of the FARC's Secretariat made her very unpopular back in Colombia. Her campaign is very solitary - other movements of the radical left she had been close to (Marcha Patriótica, of which she was the most visible figure since 2012; the Communist Party; the FARC etc.) are not supporting her, preferring instead to support any candidate with more favourable odds - yet she surprisingly submitted 1.29 million signatures to back her bid. She does have support among victims' organizations (for her real, tireless work in favour of 'humanitarian exchanges' during the conflict in the mid-2000s), left-wing pacifist groups and Afro-Colombians. She is also supported by former Conservative representative Yidis Medina, most famous for having admitted that she was bribed by the government to vote in favour of the amendment allowing Uribe's first reelection in 2004. Perhaps to make people forget that she is literally a castrochavista, her campaign is more generically a left-wing populist one with the main proposal being to abolish the VAT. She is one of the most unpopular candidates, still seen in the collective imagination as 'the candidate of the FARC'. Yet, she claims that she is not looking for alliances before the first round. The main use of her campaign will be to #trigger Alejandro Ordóñez (hopefully enough to make him go crazy so that he strangles himself with his suspenders).
Rodrigo Londoño 'Timochenko' (FARC): The announcement a few months ago that 'Timochenko', the last guerrilla commander of the FARC turned leader of the FARC political party, would be the FARC's presidential candidate inevitably created controversy and widespread criticism - the most valid one (beyond the obligatory LA FAAAAAAAAAAAAAR terrorists) being that he has not even appeared before the transitional justice (granted, it doesn't yet exist and, by the looks of it, won't exist for at least the next few months). It was also an odd decision from the FARC, which had been claiming that it had no real interest in having its own candidate but was instead seeking to build a 'transition government' to support the implementation of the peace agreement, supporting another candidate with better odds of winning. Unsurprisingly, given that nobody wants to ally with the FARC, their catcalls didn't get much interest and they were left with little choice. It also shows - like the makeup of their list for Congress - that the FARC have (a) no actual desire for real contrition or assuming their own responsibilities (they have apologized on several occasions and for specific crimes, but beyond that...) and that (b) they are really astoundingly shitty at public relations, keeping a close-minded wartime guerrilla mentality. Rodrigo Londoño is seen as a 'moderate' within the new party, among those who wanted to adopt a new acronym, and his actual ideas (which are very hazy) are actually not that radical (his position on land reform and expropriation is basically what the constitution says). He did say that he has learned "from the mistakes and successes of castrochavismo". Unsurprisingly, 'Timo' is the most unpopular of all the candidates and has absolutely no chance whatsoever.
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