Que pena contigo Colombia, but if only 40% of you bother to turn out to vote how can you complain about the outcome?

Que pena contigo Colombia, but if you insist on voting for the “los mismos de siempre” how can you complain that it is they who govern you?

Que pena contigo Colombia, but if you wring your hands at the corruption and vote for those who stand most accused of this crime…well, you only have yourself to blame.

Yesterday President Santos and Uribista Oscar Ivan Zuluaga made it through to a second round election run-off on 15 June.

Both candidates have been mired in a dirty tricks campaign that has placed faith in Colombian politics at an all time low. The legitimacy of the governing class is widely claimed to be “on trial”.

Yet despite the anger and the disgust at the campaign, despite the record levels of corruption – the former attorney general called March’s congressional race the most “corrupt in history” – Colombians have conspired to plump for the two candidates said to be responsible for this perversion of the democratic process.

Oscar Ivan Zuluaga’s tilt at the presidency has been mired in accusations of espionage and sabotage of the peace process with the FARC. President Santos meanwhile is said to have spent millions of taxpayers’ money buying off local regional and national politicians, as well as a number of high profile journalists across the national media.

We have heard of 12 million dollars of drug money allegedly finding its way into the Santos camp, while hackers have supposedly tapped the phones and emails of peace negotiators; even the president’s personal account.

The tiendas have been full of talk of revenge on the political masters, “so long as Santos doesn’t win”, “anyone but Uribe again”, they determinedly tell me as I tuck into an empanada or a pan de bono. As the Pony Malta arrives, I’m told with such conviction that “we need change” that now is the time. But alas, we`ve heard this talk before.

Recent polls show the majority of Colombians believe the country is “heading in the wrong direction”. Nearly two thirds are against President Santos being re-elected and half are appalled at the prospect of President Uribe returning to power.

So how then to explain the decision to give Mr Zuluaga – unkindly labelled Uribe’s puppet – and the incumbent JuanMa Santos another shot at power? How can such indignation and dispair be replaced by apathy and apparent masochism?

Colombia is a paradox, and Colombians a complicated bunch. You see, what they say in public can often bear very little relation to what they think in private. Those millions clamouring for change…well, a good part of them may really think it better to go for the devil they know.

There is also the view that many sociologists argue: Colombians are notoriously adept at avoiding personal responsibility; a problem is the result of someone else’s actions not one’s own. Harsh? Perhaps, but speak to most Colombians and they will lament that yes, this is a societal trait.

If this is true it can explain in some way why fewer than half took the short walk to the polling booth yesterday. It’s someone else’s problem, nothing will change anyway, what can I do about it? This sense of impotence – understandable perhaps when you consider the unbreakable social strata and the chasm of wealth and power that exists between the elite and the rest – leads to an uninterested aquisicence to the will of those in charge. The boss in Colombia is always a “doctor”, a supposedly superior being whose demands must be obeyed (or ignored), but never challenged.

The idea that elections are a chance to “kick the buggers out” is untranslatable here.

Colombia may well be one of the happiest nations of earth, but it is also one whose people seem inexorably to disenfranchise themselves.

The good news is on 15 June the 33 million voters have another chance to vote. The bad news is on 14 June Colombia kick off their World Cup campaign.

Photo Richard McColl. Results of the two votes cast at “table 72”.