Colombia is holding congressional elections and two 'inter-parties' open presidential primaries on Sunday, March 11. Here is a rather lengthy preview of the main players and the things at stake. As some necessary background, here is my previous post profiling the candidates in the May/June presidential election. The fact that I started by writing about the presidential election probably says something about the relative importance of these different elections.
COLOMBIAN CONGRESS
Colombia has a bicameral Congress like the United States, with a Senate and a House of Representatives.
102 senators will be elected on Sunday. 100 are elected in a single national constituency, and two are elected in a special national constituency for indigenous peoples. Voters choose for which constituency to vote for, but they may only vote in one. In addition to these 102 seats, the new FARC party will be entitled to at least 5 seats ex officio for the next two terms (until 2026). Since the 2015 constitutional reform, the runner-up in the presidential election will be automatically entitled to a seat in the Senate
165 representatives will be elected on Sunday. 161 are elected in 33 regular territorial constituencies corresponding to the country's administrative subdivisions (departments + Bogotá D.C.), which range in size from 2 to 18 depending on population (in theory). 3 are elected in two special national constituencies - one for Afro-Colombians (2 seats) and one for indigenous communities (1 seat). Colombian expats/emigrants elect one member in a special international constituency. In addition, the new FARC party will also receive 5 seats in the House ex officio until 2026, and the runner-up's running-mate (vice presidential candidate) in the presidential election will be automatically entitled to a seat.
In political culture, the Senate is clearly hierarchically superior and more prestigious, with the House being a stepping stone to the Senate in the typical political career path. Senators are far more well-known than representatives, and media coverage of congressional elections focuses on the horse-race for the 100 seats in the Senate. Senatorial candidates usually unofficially run with one or more candidates for the House as a fórmula or 'ticket' - a way of coordinating or managing vote distribution in a competitive preferential vote system
Both houses of Congress are elected by proportional representation. The threshold is 3% of the valid national vote (Senate), half of the quota (House districts with 3 or more seats) or a third of the quota (House districts with 2 seats). Colombia's PR system, the current version of which dates from the 2003 political reform, is rather peculiar and unique (comparable to the Brazilian system). Parties decide whether they run a closed (non-preferential) or open (preferential) list — a closed list of candidates is pre-ordered and voters may only vote for the party as a whole (marking the party logo); for an open list voters may vote for one individual candidate on the party's list (identified on the ballot by a number) and the list is entirely re-ordered on the basis of amount preferential votes obtained by each candidate. Seats are first distributed between parties (lists) using the d'Hondt method/cifra repartidora and only then between candidates on the lists, so there is an incentive for vote pooling — or to recruit individual candidates who will win enough votes on their own to help their party over the threshold. This year, all major parties expected to win seats except the FARC are running open lists for Senate.
There's an option on the ballot to cast a blank vote which is legally recognized as a valid vote, with the possibility of the election having to be repeated if there is a plurality of blank votes.
Colombia does generally fit with the Latin American norm of 'weak legislatures, strong executives' — the concept of 'divided government' remains rather foreign since basically all presidents have managed to cobble together ramshackle coalitions, more often than not thanks to bureaucratic and financial favours rather than actual ideological principles. However, this should be qualified by saying that congressmen aren't zombies who vote however a stronger executive tells them to — if they are to do so, they'll need something in exchange, and they ask for more than a palace guided tour or an autographed picture. When they feel that the executive's political capital has been depleted, is weakened and/or is in the final year of its term, congressmen will be far more independent of executive power and more liable to stray from the government's desires (as happened in 2017).
Why this election matters: While the presidential election in May is the big show, congressional elections are sometimes seen as the unofficial first round in a 'three round' presidential election: they clear up the field, make or break candidates and show the main trends. But they aren't perfect predictors, in part because the makeup of the electorate varies significantly between congressional and presidential elections — the former are dominated by clientelistic machines and their network. Regardless, these elections will determine the makeup of the Congress that the next president will need to work with. The next president and Congress will deal with important issues like continued implementation of the 2016 peace agreement with the FARC (hopefully), a reform of the judiciary, pension reform and the future of the embattled/failed peace 'talks' with the ELN guerrilla in Ecuador (to cite just a few issues of relevance).
PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES ON THE LEFT AND RIGHT
Sectors of the 'left' and 'right' are holding open presidential primaries on March 11. At this point, the outcomes of both primaries, particularly on the left, don't seem to be in doubt. But they will be important to test the relative strength of both sides: as a general test, the left will be aiming to get at least 1.5 million voters; the right will be aiming to get over 3-4 million voters. These primaries are also important because the favourites in both of these primaries are also now the top two favourites in 'general election polls' for May.
The left-wing primary (Consulta 'inclusión social por la paz') opposes former Bogotá mayor Gustavo Petro (a 2010 presidential candidate) to former Santa Marta mayor Carlos Caicedo. There will be absolutely no suspense: Petro will win in a very lopsided landslide, with Caicedo's support limited to his regional base in Santa Marta (Magdalena) and maybe surrounding departments like La Guajira. The main thing to look for will be the number of people who choose to participate in this primary. Petro is currently one of the two frontrunners in the presidential election, although many people — myself included — have doubts about how solid (or real) this polling support actually is. The primary will tell us a bit more about whether Petro's momentum is real or if, like the ola verde of 2010, is an overhyped social media bubble. I discussed Petro in my guide to the presidential candidates (link above): in sum, he is an extremely polarizing figure who is the left's icon and best hope, but the right's greatest nightmare. To his supporters, he is the victim of 'the establishment' and 'the mafias'; to his opponents, he is a demagogic left-wing populist (at best) and/or the incarnation of castrochavismo.
The right-wing primary (Gran consulta por Colombia) opposes senator Iván Duque of the Centro Democrático (CD), former president Álvaro Uribe's party; former cabinet minister and 2014 presidential candidate Marta Lucía Ramírez; and former inspector general Alejandro Ordóñez. Given that Duque has surged into second or first place in 'general election polls' and is the other frontrunner for May, he is expected to win. Moreover, he has campaigned very actively, flanked by Álvaro Uribe, and has crisscrossed the country. The CD is expected to win at least 2 million votes in the senatorial election, and Duque's bet is that those same 2 million (and more) will vote for him in the primary. Marta Lucía Ramírez hasn't campaigned as actively, relying on surrogates and her personal image/popularity as a woman and experienced, pragmatic and moderate conservative politician. Unlike Duque, she has only weak support from political machines (who 'put' a lot of votes) and no political party officially behind her (she has some support from groups in the Conservative Party). Alejandro Ordóñez is an ultra-conservative far-right candidate, offering a charming mix of traditionalist religious fundamentalism/crude homophobia ('family values') and far-right quackery about the peace process ('surrendering to the communists') all packaged in phony Trumpian populism ('drain the swamp'-like rhetoric despite being removed from office in 2016 for corruption). Ordóñez has evangelical and traditionalist Catholic support and is mostly relying on social conservative/religious voters. I also wrote in more details about all 3 candidates in my guide to the candidates (again, link above). If 4 million people choose to participate in this primary, it will be a major boost to the uribista right's chances in May.
CONGRESSIONAL (SENATE) PARTIES AND LISTS
Below are my comments on the major parties/lists, focusing on the Senate.
Liberal Party (Partido Liberal Colombiano, PLC): One of the two traditional/historic parties, founded in the nineteenth century, initially rather similar to nineteenth century Latin American 'liberalism' — haughty principles, grotesque reality. The one timeless ideological principle, shared with the Conservatives, was murdering the other side. 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 gradually lost their ideological distinctiveness over the course of the National Front (1958-1974), including the timeless principle of murdering the other guy, and became even more of an amalgamation of caciques and clientelist machines, united by little more than the inherited hatreds, family ties and access to the spoils of power. The Liberals had always been a complex, convoluted and often divided coalition of regional caciques and clientelist machines, but these regional elites and their clientelist machines became predominant within internal party politics under president Julio César Turbay Ayala (1978-1982). The Liberal Party last won a presidential election by itself in 1994 with Ernesto Samper, who claimed to be a social democracy but whose brand of social democracy apparently included taking campaign money from the Cali cartel. They lost the 1998 and 2002 elections; in the latter, they were defeated by Álvaro Uribe, a former Liberal governor of Antioquia (1995-1997). The rise of Álvaro Uribe and the rapid emergence of uribismo badly hurt the Liberals, with many of their remaining factions opportunistically jumping ship while the party's oficialismo joined the opposition. The Liberals are not a party meant to be in opposition (being in opposition causes them great anguish and mental breakdowns), so they jumped at the opportunity of rejoining government with Juan Manuel Santos in 2010 —Santos being a familiar and reliable scion of the Bogotan elite, a descendent of former president Eduardo Santos (and from the family which owned El Tiempo), who was closer to traditional elitist Colombian liberalism than the populist Uribe. The Liberal Party, since 2010, has been the bedrock of Santos' governing coalition and perhaps the most loyal ally, amply rewarded with cabinet portfolios, 'quotas' and marmelade.
The Liberal Party is officially a member of the Socialist International, which therefore means that it is not a socialist party. The Liberals continue to claim the mantle of the 'great traditions' of Colombian liberalism, which is perhaps marginally more positive than Colombian conservatism but still not something I'd really be proud of; in any case, Colombian liberalism — even more than other definitions of 'liberalism' anywhere in the twenty-first century — is a meaningless, amorphous catchphrase which can and has been used to mean just about anything. The Liberals have tended to be slightly to the left of the Conservatives, although this has not necessarily been the case over the past four decades: Turbay Ayala was effectively much more to the right of his Conservative successor Belisario Betancur (1982-1986). Today, the Liberals speak in slogans and catchphrases about 'peace', 'opportunities', 'social justice', 'social liberalism' and so forth. The Liberal Party's rather weak presidential candidate is former peace negotiator Humberto de la Calle, a fine man with ethics and morals, but his character and political views are hardly reflected by the composition of the Liberals' lists for Senate and House. The Liberals are hoping to maintain their 17 seats in the Senate, despite the loss of three major vote-getters from 2014 (evangelical homophobe Viviane Morales, now running for president; Horacio Serpa, the party's three-time presidential candidate from 1998 to 2006; and Juan Manuel Galán, son of the late mythical icon Luis Carlos Galán). To do so the Liberal list for Senate is largely made up of incumbent senators, ambitious representatives looking for a promotion or 'heirs' of retiring politicians (Horacio José Serpa, Serpa's son and former Bogotá city councillor). Several of these candidates are connected to corruption scandals, convicted corrupt/criminal politicians or controversial clientelist machines — people like senator Arleth Casado de López, wife of former senator Juan Manuel López Cabrales, convicted for parapolítica as one of the signatories of the infamous 2001 Pact of Ralito with Salvatore Mancuso's Bloque Norte of the AUC (paramilitaries); or political novice Laura Fortich Sánchez, 'heiress' of currently incarcerated Liberal senator/cacique Álvaro Ashton (who is implicated in several corruption scandals, plus a paedophilia scandal).
Democratic Centre (Centro Democrático, CD): The uribista cult party, founded and led by Álvaro Uribe (who is recognized by party statutes as lifetime 'president-founder') in 2013 following the Uribe/Santos divorce. The CD is structured and built around Álvaro Uribe and Álvaro Uribe Thought (uribismo), and nothing goes on in the party without Uribe's blessing and approval. This makes the CD one of the most disciplined, internally cohesive and coherent parties in Colombia, with a fairly 'clear' ideology. The party, led by Uribe, formed a strong opposition in Congress after the 2014 elections; one of the largest, strongest, most disciplined and most vocal opposition caucuses in recent Colombian history. The CD includes former Uribe administration officials (presidential advisers, former ministers, former senior officials), some political clans/groups in certain regions, uribista 'civil society' (sympathetic figures and allies, certain agro-industrial groups, former columnists etc.) and certain sectors of retired military officers.
The CD claims to be 'centrist' (or 'beyond/above left and right'), although it includes the sort of people who are unashamed to identify as right-wingers in a country with an historic bias towards 'centrism' (i.e. far-right lunatics). Uribismo is whatever Álvaro Uribe says and does, and if you bring up the contradictions in that, then you are obviously a mamerto castrochavista controlled by Juahampa Santos. Uribismo is clearly right-wing. Its discourse is centred around the 'principles' or huevitos of Democratic Security, Investor Confidence, Social Cohesion, Decentralized and Austere State and Popular Dialogue (I have flippantly capitalized those, because uribistas see those meaningless catchphrases as divine commandments from the President-Founder). The CD has ambitious goals of increasing its congressional representation significantly in 2018 from 20 seats (in the Senate) to 25-30, to provide a strong backbone to Iván Duque. Unlike in 2014 the CD is now running with an open list. Uribe is the top candidate on this list and will shatter all records for preferential votes, expected to win up to 1.5 million votes by himself with the #1 box. The preferential list also means that his incumbents need to fight for their survival on their own, and this may hurt incumbents who lack strong personal votes or machines of their own — people like José Obdulio Gaviria, the premier ideologue and éminence grise of uribismo (and the first cousin of Pablo Escobar). The CD's senatorial list includes incumbent senators (María del Rosario Guerra, creepy cultist Paloma Valencia, fake news master Daniel Cabrales etc.), representatives looking for a promotion (repulsive María Fernanda Cabal, neo-fascist Trump fangirl who claims that the 1929 banana massacre's deathtoll was a 'communist historic myth' or that Gabriel García Márquez would 'rot in hell' with Fidel Castro), uribista 'civil society' (Twitter star Claudia Bustamante, former hostage Leszli Kálli) retired military officers (ret. gen. Leonardo Barrero; ret. col. Luis Alfonso Plazas Vega, acquitted of forced disappearance/extrajudicial assassination for his controversial role in the 1985 re-taking of the Palace of Justice) and regional political machines (Ciro Ramírez Cortés, Pierre García, Santiago Valencia).
Conservative Party (Partido Conservador Colombiano, PCC): The other traditional party, founded in the nineteenth century, initially rather similar to nineteenth century Latin American 'conservatism'. Excluded from national power under the 'radical Olympus' of the Rionegro constitution of 1863, the Conservatives, in reaction to the failings of nineteenth-century liberalism, got their wet dream in the very conservative, authoritarian and clerical 1886 constitution, founded on the values of family, faith and order. The Conservatives ruled from about 1886 to 1930 (in different forms). The Conservatives were the minority party, in numerical terms, after 1930 and they became quite self-aware of their numerical inferiority to the Liberals. Only by expanding beyond their core, natural base and forming alliances with dissident Liberals and other smaller political groups could they win power (1982, 1998). The Conservative Party has always been a complex, convoluted and often divided coalition of regional caciques and clientelist machines, and they too came to suffer from the collapse of the party system in the 1990s. Like the Liberals, the Conservatives have been internally divided for several decades. The Conservatives, perhaps even more so than the Liberals, enter a state of collective psychosis at the prospect of not being in power somehow. They provided key congressional support to Álvaro Uribe during his two terms, although this involved a lot of blackmailing and required hefty bribes and quotas. Under Juan Manuel Santos, especially since the Uribe/Santos divorce, the Conservatives have been hopelessly divided — torn between a 'base' with conservative, right-wing views closer to Uribe and a leadership/congressional caucus driven and fed by the pursuit of quotas, marmelade and other spoils of power. This was clearest in 2014, when most of the Conservative caucus supported Santos, rather than the party's official candidate (Marta Lucía Ramírez). However, now that Santos' political capital has been depleted and that he can no longer maintain his majorities with quotas and marmelade, ostensibly 'santista' Conservatives are miraculously rediscovering their right-wing conservatism. The party will not have its own presidential candidate (as in 2002 and 2006), and wait to choose a presidential candidate until after the congressional elections — in other words, hedge their bets and wait to see who is the strongest pick between Vargas Lleras and the uribista-led coalition (although it seems likely that they'll go, officially, with Vargas Lleras).
The Conservative list is headlined by former uribista representative Miguel Gómez Martínez, the grandson of former president Laureano Gómez (1950-1951), probably Colombia's worst president. But analysts are saying that Gómez, an 'opinion' candidate with no political machine, may not win a seat. The Conservative list for Senate will try to keep its 18 seats from 2014, with 11 incumbent senators running for reelection including the president of the Senate Efraín Cepeda and all but one of the retiring senators supporting a candidate of their own to replace them (like senator Hernán Andrade supporting his sister, Esperanza Andrade). Senator Roberto Gerlein, the longest-serving senator in office since 1974, is finally retiring this year with his political group weakened and divided. Its non-incumbent candidates include representative David Barguil, who has acquired some national name recognition for his work on consumer protection and is challenging his former ally in Córdoba, senator Nora García Burgos. A few of its senatorial candidates are from a non-political background (military, religious, private sector, civil society) but their strength in votes remains to be seen — many of those candidates end up doing very poorly.
Radical Change (Cambio Radical, CR): Party founded in 1998 by galanista Liberal dissidents. Since 2003, the party has been led/controlled — officially or unofficially — by Germán Vargas Lleras, who was a senator between 1998 and 2008 and is the maternal grandson of former Liberal president Carlos Lleras Restrepo (1966-1970). CR was an uribista party until about 2008-9, although Vargas Lleras' presidential ambitions always sat poorly with Uribe. Vargas Lleras opposed Uribe's second reelection (the referendum that never was), although several CR congressmen did. Uribe went ballistic when Vargas Lleras 'betrayed' him and opposed the second reelection, and the two men started speaking to one another again only in 2017 — but, in the games of Colombian politics, they are now trading phony compliments. Vargas Lleras ran for president in 2010, and afterwards CR joined the governing coalition under Santos — with Vargas Lleras first as interior minister, later as housing minister and finally vice president (2014-2017). Now Vargas Lleras is running very much to the right, critical of the peace agreement (which he was conspicuously mum about throughout his time as vice president, needing to dragged kicking and screaming to campaign for it in the 2016 plebiscite), and would very much like it if you forgot that he ever was associated with Santos. CR is also of Liberal ancestry, so it claims to be a 'centre-right liberal party' but this is a party which has no ethical or moral principles whatsoever, even by the standards of politics writ large. Still, it is clearly a right-wing party and Vargas Lleras is a right-winger, and they are no longer hiding that in their policy discourses.
CR is a venal, unscrupulous party which has had no qualms in endorsing corruptos, parapolíticos, cuestionados, criminals and even murderers. Many of its congressmen in 2006 were later arrested and convicted for parapolítica, while in local/regional elections CR is perhaps most famous for having given its endorsement to Kiko Gómez, later sentenced to over 50 years in jail for multiple homicides, in La Guajira in 2011. Given CR's bad reputation, Vargas Lleras — who will do anything, anything, if the ends justify it — opportunistically registered his candidacy by signatures (petition) with his own movement, '#Mejor Vargas Lleras', rather than through CR (to no one's surprise, CR was the first party to endorse him!). CR's purpose now is to provide the congressional and clientelistic machine backbone to his presidential campaign, while maintaining plausible deniability when it turns out half of his congressmen are shipped off to jail.
CR has set very high expectations for itself: it wants to double the 9 seats it won in 2014, to win at least 18 if not over 20. If it fails to do that, it would be a major blow to Vargas Lleras, who is struggling badly in the polls. To do so, CR has assembled a formidable list of candidates for Senate (and House seats) — but many of them are directly or indirectly implicated in corruption scandals, parapolítica, controversies of various sorts and other skulduggery. CR's #1 candidate on its list is representative (and president of the House) Rodrigo Lara (the son of assassinated justice minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla), an extremely grating and arrogant prick. CR's #2 on the list is former senator Claudia Rodríguez de Castellanos, co-owner of the powerful evangelical International Charismatic Mission (MCI) with her husband. The MCI was allied with the CD in 2014 but defected back to CR in 2017 — Claudia Rodríguez de Castellanos was already a CR senator in 2006. CR's #3 on the list is incumbent senator Arturo Char Chaljub, the brother of the extremely powerful and popular mayor of Barranquilla Alex Char and member of the wealthy and influential Char economic/political dynasty (Disney actress Sofia Carson is related to the Char family). The Char family is CR's strongest machine in the Caribbean region and wants to expand its congressional power by winning several seats in both houses, with candidates in CR but also allies in other parties like the Conservatives. 7 of CR's 9 senators are seeking reelection and five of its 16 representatives are looking to 'jump' to the Senate. Senator Germán Varón, one of Vargas Lleras' oldest loyalists, is also running for reelection. CR's list includes many candidates connected to controversial political clans throughout Colombia — like former Santander governor Richard Aguilar, son of former governor Hugo Aguilar (leader of the search bloc which killed Escobar in 1993, convicted for parapolítica) and Juliana Escalante García, niece of former senator Álvaro 'el Gordo' García Romero (convicted to 40 years for masterminding the Macayepo massacre). Its list also includes powerful regional caciques like Temístocles Ortega (Cauca) and Edgar Díaz (Nte. de Santander).
Party of the U (Partido de la U): An empty shell of a 'party' founded in 2005, originally as a vehicle for pro-Uribe dissident Liberal caciques (and similar types) and initially imagined as 'the uribista party' - a label contested by other uribista parties, and which Uribe himself never fully embraced (except briefly in 2010-11). Its co-founders included Juan Manuel Santos, the epitome in political opportunism and the master at switching sides, and the Partido de la U won the most seats in Congress in 2006, 2010 and 2014. Until 2010, the Partido de la U enjoyed the prestige of being the premier uribista party, which allowed it to attract strong 'opinion' candidates who weren't wheeling-and-dealing traditional politicos (Gina Parody, Juan Lozano etc.). With the Uribe/Santos divorce, the Partido de la U — which paradoxically was both a party of government and party of the opposition at the same time — went overwhelmingly behind Santos, who guaranteed them access to the spoils of power and continued presence in government and congressional majorities (even though some have felt that the party was mistreated or neglected by the president, who they think should be more grateful to them - as it was his party too). The Partido de la U did suffer electorally in 2014 and 2015 with the creation of the uribista party, which took away their label as premier uribista party and made it even more of a wobbly coalition of caciques, barons and gamonales with no defining ideology or principles (besides 'power').
With Santos' unpopularity and depleted political capital, the Partido de la U's incoherence and divisions have boiled up to breaking point (or close to it). The party is very deeply divided, between warring groups of congressmen who are no longer on speaking terms with one another. The party has no presidential candidate, which its bosses have taken as their signal to do whatever they wish — so different candidates and congressmen are openly supporting different candidates (i.e. the Gnecco clan openly behind Vargas Lleras, Roy Barreras was with Humberto de la Calle in last year's Liberal primary). Just like a lot of married couples are really just in it for the income splitting at this point, the Partido de la U is only just together for legal reasons (Colombia has rigid laws on party discipline and membership which ban floor crossing), haphazardly held together for the purposes of the current elections until they can figure out a way to sign the divorce papers. On that basis, the Partido de la U obviously has no ideology whatsoever: it has never really had a coherent one, just going with the flavour of the moment. It is of Liberal ancestry, so it often claims to be liberal; Santos has tended to define himself as centrist and Third Way, so the party has too.
The party is not running a full list of candidates for Senate so it wants to consolidate its votes on its incumbents and other strong candidates, to save as many of its 21 (actually 18 now since three are in jail) Senate seats as it can. It could drop to 10-15, but given that many of their candidates are strong regional caciques with powerful machines they may surprise. Atop the party's list is senator Roy Barreras, a master in the dark arts of Colombian parliamentary politics who has been one of the key fervent supporters of the peace agreement — and is now seeking to use this image as 'the senator of peace' to expand his base and win up to 100,000 votes. 14 senators are running for reelection (incl. senators Armando Benedetti, José David Name, Jimmy Chamorro, Andrés García Zuccardi and José Alfredo Gnecco) and 7 representatives hoping to 'jump'. Among the key non-incumbents are the anointed heirs of corrupt senators Musa Besaile and Bernardo 'el Ñoño' Elías, both currently in jail for corruption: Besaile's brother Johnny Besaile and 'el Ñoño''s candidate rep. Eduardo José Tous (whose sister is married to 'el Ñoño''s cousin).
Green Alliance (Alianza Verde): Originally founded in 2005 as Opción Centro (a minor party founded by some shady ex-M19 members), in 2009 the party was taken over by the independent 'three musketeers' (former Bogotá mayors Antanas Mockus, Enrique Peñalosa, Lucho Garzón) and changed its name to the Green Party. The party gained prominence with the 'green wave' — Mockus' presidential campaign in 2010 — which in the end was not really a thing. In 2011, the Greens joined Santos' governing coalition, which they formally left in 2014. In 2013, the Greens agreed to merge with Gustavo Petro's Progressives Movement, although Petro later disavowed the merger and rebuilt a second version of the Progressives Movement (but with many of his allies in the first version of the Progressives, like Navarro Wolff, still with the Greens). The party has often lacked a common direction, historically made up of conflicting groups — for example, one of the main obstacles to the successful merger between the Greens and Progressives in 2013 was that the Greens included Enrique Peñalosa, Petro's arch-nemesis and main political opponent since 2011 (another obstacle was that certain Greens, like Alfonso Prada, had really begun to enjoy the perks of being with the government). Although the Greens do remain divided internally behind a 'left' and 'centre/right' (seen over disagreements over whether to support or oppose Bogotá mayor Peñalosa), this year, the Greens do seem to have somewhat of a clearer direction — anti-corruption, behind Fajardo in the presidential election.
The Greens generally are centrist or centre-left pragmatists (including several Polo dissidents) — Antonio Navarro Wolff, the Ospina brothers in Cali and more recent names like Claudia López and Angélica Lozano — but also some lesser known political groups in the regions (like Jorge Londoño in Boyacá and Jorge Prieto Riveros in Casanare). The Greens and the Polo are supporting Sergio Fajardo in the presidential election as part of Coalition Colombia, and the Greens' lists include some members of Fajardo's movement (Compromiso Ciudadano). The Greens won 5 seats in 2014 and they want to either hold their seats or increase their seat count, a bit more difficult since they are losing their two most popular incumbents (Navarro and Claudia López). The Greens' top candidate is Antanas Mockus, who may attract many votes even though he has been less visible politically for the past few years because of health reasons. Iván Marulanda, a veteran politician, is Sergio Fajardo's candidate on the list (placed second). Bogotá rep. Angélica Lozano, a popular and competent legislator and anti-corruption voice, is likely to do quite well and attract many of Claudia López's supporters (they are partners). Other strong candidates include former senator and justice minister (2016-17) Jorge Londoño, Bogotá city councillor Antonio Sanguino, Nariño governor Camilo Romero's candidate Aulo Polo and Piedad Córdoba's eldest son Juan Luis Castro.
Democratic Alternative Pole (Polo Democrático Alternativo, PDA/Polo): Colombia's 'leading' left-wing party, founded in 2005 in the naive aim of uniting the disunited left — it was founded as the merger of the Independent Democratic Pole (founded in 2003 from some of the groups and movements which supported Lucho Garzón's 2002 presidential candidacy, like the Moreno brothers' corrupt ANAPO, the remnants of the AD M-19 with Navarro Wolff and Gustavo Petro, and other groups like union leader/senator Jaime Dussán) and Democratic Alternative (more 'radical' or 'traditional' left-wing groups and parties including Carlos Gaviria's Social and Political Front, the Communists and Jorge Enrique Robledo's Maoist MOIR). For a brief moment, between 2005 and 2006, the Polo appeared to have finally united the left behind a coherent political alternative, and Carlos Gaviria won 22% and second place in the 2006 presidential election. The Polo's unity began breaking down after 2007 — the moderate pragmatist Lucho Garzón left in 2009, Gustavo Petro and Antonio Navarro left in late 2010 etc. — and the party's electoral support declined in 2010. After the Polo's success in the 2014 presidential election (15% for Clara López), its internal divisions boiled up again — pitting Clara López, who wanted to build a 'broad front' for peace and had endorsed Santos in the name of peace in the 2014 runoff, against Jorge Enrique Robledo, the 'radical'/'dogmatist' who wanted to focus on economic issues (anti-neoliberalism) and remain firmly in opposition to Santos. These tensions reached breaking point in 2016, when Clara — against her party's orders — agreed to join the cabinet as labour minister. Robledo's MOIR faction manoeuvred its way to consolidate control of the party apparatus and exclude Clara López from the presidential candidacy (forcing her to leave the party in the spring of 2017). Robledo was the party's presidential candidate, but joined the Coalition Colombia with Claudia López (Greens) and Sergio Fajardo, agreeing to withdraw to let Fajardo be acclaimed as the coalition's candidate and run for reelection to the Senate instead.
The Polo, by virtue of being a left-wing opposition party, has a far more coherent ideology than most other parties, notwithstanding its longstanding internal divisions which often had an ideological undertone. The Polo is opposed to the liberal economic model (free trade, economic liberalism, privatization/tertiarization of public services, bad healthcare etc.). Robledo's MOIR faction, which controls the party, has tended to focus on economic issues (and corruption) rather than the peace process. Somewhat ironically, the Polo — controlled by the 'Maoist' MOIR — supports Sergio Fajardo, the bland centrist notoriously afraid of saying anything of substance. The Polo has its work cut out: hold their seats in the Senate, after they only narrowly cleared the 3% threshold in 2014. It will be more difficult this year, even if the popular Robledo (190,000+ preferential votes in 2014) is seeking reelection, because the left is more divided this year between several lists and the Polo's decision to support Fajardo has cost it leftist support. All 5 incumbents are seeking reelection, among them senator Iván Cepeda (Uribe's arch-nemesis). Prominent non-incumbent candidates include former trade union boss and former senator Jaime Dussán (traditional figure of the old left), 2015 Santander gubernatorial candidate Pedro Leonidas Gómez and former rep. Wilson Arias.
Civic Option (Opción Ciudadana): The 'trash collector' party — the party's purpose is to collect and recycle other parties' trash, i.e. candidates who are too shady and corrupt to be openly accepted by the other parties. To cover its tracks, confuse people and periodically revamp its image, the party has changed its name several times: it was originally Convergencia Ciudadana (founded in the late 1990s), which was the only small 'trash collector'/paraco party to survive parapolítica, it became the National Integration Party (PIN) in 2009 and then adopted its current name in 2013. Yet, it is referred to as the 'viejo PIN' nearly as often as it is by its actual name. The one constant throughout all this: the party's boss has been Luis Alberto Gil, former senator who was convicted for parapolítica in 2012 (he is represented in the Senate by his wife Doris Vega), who rules the party with an iron fist but has also turned the party into an 'endorsements factory', handing out formal endorsement to a wide range of shady characters. Obviously, the party has no ideology and doesn't even pretend to have one, but it has been a rather reliable — but unpresentable — congressional ally for both Uribe and Santos (although the party is occasionally rather angry that governments are too ashamed to hang out with them publicly). The party has never run a presidential candidate of its own, and its members are generally free to support whoever they wish, although in the end it will invariably support most governments. It rarely gets national media attention, its congressmen are of the anonymous cacique sort (those who win a ton of votes... despite being lazy congressmen who just go there for the free food and salary).
It won 5 seats in 2014. The loss of two major groups who have moved their votes to CR (Aguilar clan in Santander and 'El Gordo' García Romero's group in Sucre) may finally threaten the party's survival, although the party's logo — quite tellingly — is a phoenix, which is their way of reminding us that their electoral successes took everyone by surprise in 2010 and 2014. Still, their candidates are weak this year and none of their non-incumbents seem likely to replace the lost votes from 2014, so they might finally, hopefully, bite the dust. The party's top candidate is senator Antonio José Correa, close to criminal lottery queen 'La Gata' (convicted for homicide and parapolítica). Senator Doris Vega is second on the list. The strongest non-incumbents appear to be William Alberto Rodríguez (candidate of former senator Juan Carlos 'El Negro' Martínez, recently released after serving his jail sentence for parapolítica) and Fernando Gómez Bacci (son of former Guajira governor and convicted murderer Kiko Gómez).
List of decency (Lista de la Decencia) — ASI, UP, MAIS: This is the first inter-party coalition list for Congress. Called the 'list of decency' or 'the decents', it is supported by three legally recognized political parties — the Independent Social Movement (ASI), the Patriotic Union (UP) and the Alternative Indigenous and Social Movement (MAIS) — and by Gustavo Petro, Carlos Caicedo and (formerly) Clara López (she has left the left-wing primary and is now Humberto de la Calle's running mate). The ASI and MAIS have their legal recognition by way of being indigenous parties, although both parties (particularly the old ASI) have used their legal recognition to endorse (often without much vetting) candidates in other constituencies and elections. The UP, which was re-granted legal recognition by a judicial order in 2013, was the party founded in 1985 by left-wing/communist groups during the first peace process with the FARC (it was, for some time, the FARC's political front, but the FARC quickly abandoned them and left them all out to die — literally). Over a thousand UP members, leaders, candidates and elected officials were assassinated in a political genocide orchestrated by the drug cartels, paramilitaries, intelligence services, military units and 'the deep state' between the 1980s and 1990s. The ASI was founded in 1991 as the Indigenous Social Alliance by indigenous organizations in the Cauca, and has continuously renewed its legal recognition through the indigenous constituency. The MAIS was founded in 2013 with the support of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC), the largest indigenous organization in Colombia. Both ASI and MAIS claim to be left-wing, although the ASI has provided a lot of avales to candidates who aren't necessarily left-wing (like Fajardo in Medellín). The list is supported by Petro's movement (Colombia Humana/Progresistas), which has next to no 'political' base (elected officials etc.) but a strong base on social media and among indignados (assuming they bother to vote... which they probably won't). The list is clearly left-wing — and Petro's allies on the list (who are the most visible on social media) speak his left-wing anti-establishment language (against 'the mafias' etc.) — and the name 'decency' indicates its strong anti-corruption discourse. Most candidates have no political experience, none of them have criminal records or open investigations, most of them come from civil society and many worked with Petro's administration. The list's top candidate is Petro ally and writer/screenwriter Gustavo Bolívar. Some prominent candidates include former teachers' union boss and former senator Tarsicio Mora (close to Clara López), Petro loyalist Gloria Florez and veteran UP leader Aida Avella.
Most feel as if it's unlikely that the list will pass the threshold, although a strong vote for Petro in the primary may boost the list's chances. In any case, it will split the left-wing vote with the Polo and FARC.
Independent Movement of Absolute Renovation (Movimiento Independiente de Renovación Absoluta, MIRA): The MIRA is a religious/confessional party founded in 2000 by the leaders of the Church of God Ministry of Jesus Christ International, a rather odd evangelical church with an international presence and isolated from other evangelical churches in Colombia (who see them as heretics). The MIRA was the only Christian party to survive the 2003 political reform. It was represented in the Senate between 2002 and 2014, with its leading senator being Alexandra Moreno Piraquive, the daughter of the founders of the church, whose retirement in 2014 following a feud with her mom led the party to fall below the 3% threshold in the Senate (it narrowly saved its party status by winning seats in the House with over 3% of the vote there). In February 2018, the Council of State ruled after a very long investigation that MIRA had been the victim of fraud in the 2014 elections and re-assigned 3 seats in the Senate to them. The party is the political arm of the church and was ostensibly founded by the Moreno Piraquive couple following a divine revelation. The church/party/spiritual movement — who form a single whole — have carried out lots of social work and charitable activities in poorer, remote regions of Colombia, which has expanded their electoral base beyond the church's followers. In Congress, the MIRA has, since 2002, remained an independent party — it has never allied with a government or run a presidential candidate, but instead has kept its head low and its congressmen have been recognized for their hard work on specific issues. Even if most people will never vote for them for religious reasons, most will recognize that their elected officials do stand out for the quality of their congressional work (which isn't the case for most congressmen, who, again, are just there for the free food). As the political wing of a church, the MIRA does have a small but solid, loyal core electorate. For the first time MIRA is running an open list, and it is the only party whose top candidate is a woman: expats rep. Ana Paola Agudelo. Manuel Antonio Piraquive, nephew of the church's founder and leader, is also running, along with three-term Bogotá rep. Carlos Eduardo Guevara.
The party's goal is to regain/hold its 3 seats in the Senate.
Alternative Revolutionary Force of the Commons (Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del Común, FARC): The 'new' FARC party does not require presentation. In a few words: the former guerrilla is now a legally recognized political party entitled to at least five seats in both houses for the next two congressional periods (until 2026). Because of that, the FARC don't actually care about this election and are instead more focused on the local elections in 2019, which will allow them — or so they hope — to build a local base with councillors and mayors, just like the UP had in 1986. The FARC have dedicated the bulk of their time as a political party at reminding people why they hate them: arrogance, a near-complete lack of historical responsibility, a complete lack of introspection and a high degree of brazenness (in their list of top 5 candidates — mostly former guerrilla commanders loathed by public opinion as war criminals, in their 'new' name being the 'old' name). But then again, they don't care about that. The FARC has been unable to campaign in many cities because of spontaneous or organized protests and attacks, which led them to suspend their campaign and complain about a lack of guarantees. The FARC's top 5 candidates are: 'Iván Márquez' (former guerrilla commander and FARC chief peace negotiator, a dogmatic and unrepentant figure), 'Pablo Catatumbo' (former guerrilla commander and peace negotiator, more moderate), 'Victoria Sandino' (former front commander and peace negotiator in charge of gender issues), Julián Gallo Cubillos/Carlos Antonio Lozada (former guerrilla commander and peace negotiator) and Criselda Lobo (party exec member and widow of FARC founder 'Manuel Marulanda'). Former guerrilla commander and peace negotiator 'Benkos Biohó', responsible for the horrendous 2002 Bojayá massacre, is sixth on the list and would gain a seat if the FARC does unexpectedly well or (more likely) one of the 5 above resigns the seat. There are some non-guerrilla left-wingers on the list, most notably Chocó miners leader Ariel Antonio Quinto.
Somos (former ALAS party) and Colombia Justa Libres are two of the most prominent other lists in contention for the Senate, and both are running Christian evangelical candidates. Colombia Justa Libres claims to be supported by hundreds of evangelical churches, and is led by Cali pastor John Milton Rodríguez.
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