My afternoon with Santos
The surprisingly svelte (ish) Santos – it´s true that television adds a stone – no, not that Santos, but Francisco “Pacho” Santos, the president´s cousin and would be opponent in next year´s polls, burst into the restaurant in Bogota´s Candelaria 25 minutes late (almost on time in Colombia).
The thin and translucent rimmed John Lennon glasses bounced on his anything but Roman nose. Shorter too than expected, I mused.
Unimposing, and jocular, he apologised for his tardiness. “Transport”, he moaned; the fault of “12 years of appalling government in Bogota”.
Within minutes, he was again on his feet, warning us his subsequent words would “cause controversy”; that he was proposing “real change” for Colombia. We were not about to suffer the tedium of a politician who guards and minces his words, “The Candidate” boasted. Gesticulating wildly, intermittently squashing his glasses back up his rotund face, Santos launched into his vision for a new Republic – a federal, decentralized, and competitive Colombia.
Under his premiership, Bogota would no longer be the ringmaster, but instead set the localities free. The Santos – no, not the JuanMa – presidency would cascade money to the regions, freeing them to compete against each other to provide their citizens with the highest quality public services.
Colombia has the second most difficult and complex geography in the world, according to Santos; what does Bogota know of Anserma, Apartado, or Algeciras, and what has it done to improve the lot of those who live in these “pueblos por allá, lejos”? Good point, I thought.
Santos´ brave new world would see local government able to set its own tax codes and rates, and strip the capitolio of the majority of its functions in education, policing, and health. I found myself nodding. Santos´argument was convincing enough.
The tirade continued. Colombia was a success – to the extent to which Santos thought it wasn´t a failure – “despite, not because of Bogota”. They say the capital is responsible for 30 per cent of the nation´s GDP, but for Pacho the metropolis is synonymous with corrupt and bureaucratically sclerotic officials hellbent on centralizing power. Ouch!
Santos might be a Bogotano himself, but he says he feels more at home travelling to the far flung, the lost and local. A conscious attempt to appear at odds with his cousin, Juan Manuel, the “cocktail and country club” elitist president? Why, of course.
Building us up to a crescendo of criticism, a list of failings of the current system was fired out; each blow at the heart of the current commander in chief delivered with increasing ferocity. Pacho´s hands and arms were now flapping with such abandon that, if energetic extremities alone could sort the nation´s profund and endemic problems, Santos would be ya´ man.
To applause he sat down and began to eat the pumpkin soup slowly cooling. The floor was open to questions.
Come March, Santos hopes to be chosen as ex-president Alvaro Uribe´s candidate for the May presidential elections. He currently leads a pack of four candidates, all more or less unknown by the 15 million voters (well, that`s how many – sticking my thumb in the air – I suspect will vote) who will decide who walks into the Casa de Nariño on inauguration day next August.
Santos is unquestionably media friendly – he hosted a breakfast radio programme for years – and is a communicator able to whip up support among true believers. He is combative too, unafraid brutally to attack his opponents; a no nonsense, blood and thunder sort of politician.
Will that be enough to win him the candidature first and the presidency second?
As he tucked into his steak (a Colombian restaurant so, with rice, potatoes, yuca and patacones), I told Pacho the Democratic Centre movement – Uribe`s “political party” – had much work to do to convince the nation it offered more than just opposition to the peace process with the FARC.
A protest vote is not enough.
The affable Pacho smiled wryly. He agreed. Wait, he said, in the coming months we will see a real manifesto for government. I`ll hold you to that, I promised.