Saturday, 24 December 2011

Forget about Europe Mr Cameron, Colombia awaits

The French and the Germans might yet regret treating the British so badly. The treaty cooked up in Berlin and Paris two weeks ago to cripple London's financial services industry, the engine of the British economy, was highly cynical. Prime Minister Cameron had no choice but to exercise the veto. Britain was not going to pay for the mistakes and overspending of economies in a currency it had the good sense not to join.

The bad behaviour of Europe's bully boys should act as the catalyst for Cameron to lift his gaze away from the failing markets across the English channel.  He should cast his eyes across the Atlantic to an economy whose third quarter growth was just short of 8%, where private-sector optimism is high and where the government actively wants to do business. That country is of course Colombia.

Should Cameron heed this call, he will find fellow Brit and ultra-entrepeneur, Richard Branson already there. Next year Britain`s most popular billionaire will launch Virgin mobile across Latin America, with Colombia a key market.

Britons, Colombia awaits.

Wednesday, 14 December 2011

Colombian Liberal Party openly courts President Santos

President Santos' departure from the U party appears to have hastened this week following the election of 31 year old hardline-Santista, Simon Gaviria as leader of the Colombian Liberal Party.

Gaviria has just eight years of active political experience but is now in charge of perhaps the biggest political force in the country. Priority number one is the proposed reunification of the Liberal movement - the Liberals split during the Uribe years when members left to join the U Party (in support of Uribe) or the Radical Change Party (to oppose Uribe).

Gaviria's task is to temp these old Liberals back to the table. It is President Santos, however, who is the reunification king maker. Santos is Liberal aristocracy. He left the party to join Uribe but remains ideologically attached to them. His government is distinctly Liberal in nature. For Gaviria, Santos is the 'natural leader' of the reunified movement - he will decide its fate.

A Santos led Liberal movement would shatter the coalition government, and quite possible lead to the disintegration of the U Party. Santos' movements will define the way Colombian politics is done over the coming years and will decide who becomes the next president of the republic.

Sunday, 11 December 2011

Colombian Conservatives must copy UK Tories to survive

Unanimously elected by the national directorate of the Colombian Conservative Party, Senator Efrain Cepeda this month became the president of a political force that once ruled the country but today is approaching its nadir.

The Conservatives were drubbed in the elections of 30 October. Former (Conservative) President of Colombia, Andres Pastrana labelled the defeat 'an historic disaster...one of the worst results in history'.

He was right. The Conservatives lost over 1000 councillors, and were reduced to just one governorship. Even more humiliating is the case of the Conservative candidate in the capital city, Bogota, who was forced to withdraw from the race over a month before votes were cast as polls showed less than 0.5% of the electorate were supporting him.

The Conservatives remain a major force in Congress, and, by virtue of their membership of the coalition government, they have ministers of state. But the party is no longer one of natural government as it once professed it to be.

Worse still, the Santos government appears to be ignoring Conservative policies opting instead to deliver a suspiciously Liberal looking agenda. Santos is certainly much less in tune with Conservatives than was his predecessor Alvaro Uribe. A fact that has led in recent months to a public falling out between outgoing Conservative Party President Jose Dario Salazar, and Santos.

Amid the wreckage of this waning Conservative influence, Efrain Cepeda takes hold of the party reins promising to revive the collective and to take the party in a different direction. His challenge is great, and the change he must effect is drastic.