#Alvaro Uribe

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Cometh the hour, cometh Germán

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Is German Vargas Lleras about to emerge from the shadow of President Juan Manuel Santos and sweep to victory in next year`s election?

On 30 May 2010, German Vargas Lleras won a million and a half votes in the first round of Colombia`s presidential election.

The Cambio Radical hopeful had come a surprise third, beating candidates from Colombia`s big two traditional parties; Conservatives and Liberals.  The next day, I posted on Facebook, long before I had set up Colombia Politics, “German Vargas Lleras, 2014-2018”, in an allusion to the possible outcome of the next election.

Six and a bit months to go, and this is still a real possibility. Here`s why:

For months Vargas Lleras had led in the polls. In May he was even more popular than Alvaro Uribe, who is constitutionally prohibited from running, but who is now head and shoulders clear of all other politicians in Colombia.

If the election were held tomorrow, Vargas Lleras would beat not only President Santos, but also Uribe`s choice, Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, and the left-wing alternatives of Clara Lopez and Antonio Navarro Wolff.

Vargas has dreamt of the top job since he was in short trousers. He has dedicated his life to the ascent of the greasy pole, for decades working his magic in corridors of power. Most recently he has been for three years straight, President Santos` “ministro estrella” or “star minister”.

In the first years of the Santos administration, Vargas pulled the strings for his boss in congress, setting the parliamentary agenda and whipping the National Unity coalition into shape. Latterly he has donned a hard hat to dish out free houses for the poor.

Vargas has been so good, so loyal and indispensible to President Santos, that the commander in chief has placed him in charge of the Santos re-election campaign.

Santos has tied his man so tightly to the ship that even if it sinks he will have no life boat. Or at least that is what Santos hopes. Earlier this year, the president set up Buen Gobierno, a form of think-tank-cum-campaign-headquarters, and swiftly dispatched his right-hand man to be its boss.

Impossible, Santos calculates, for the man leading the charge to extend the administration into a second term, to cut loose and go it alone.

But this is Colombia,  and politics here can often seem as scrupulous as the rotten boroughs of early 1800s England.

Rumours circulate that Vargas Lleras is pouring over the endless polling data that put him top; he faces a genuine crossroads moment.

President Santos has a week to announce whether he will run for re-election. If he decides to pass the buck – something virtually no one is predicting – Vargas will almost certainly inherit the crown. But even if Santos does run, Vargas could yet emerge.

Here are three or many scenarios that could encourage Vargas to pull the trigger.

What if Santos does not recover in the polls? At the moment the president is hugely unpopular and less than a third of Colombians will vote for him. In the first round of voting the spoilt ballots would beat the incumbent. If this does not change quickly, Santos is doomed.

What if the peace process with the FARC guerrillas goes awry? Could Santos really be re-elected if the talks collapse.

What happens if a new wave of protests – like those that brought the nation to a standstill in August – flares up? Coffee farmers and agriculture workers continue to complain of government broken promises, and it is not difficult to see how these or those against health reforms currently going through congress, would take to the streets again. Santos has shown himself incapable of handling such crises, can he really survive more public unrest?

Frankly, such is the antipathy, that it is not beyond the realm of possibility that Colombians decide enough is enough, that Santos whatever the cost, should not be allowed four more years.

So come January once the Christmas festivities are out of the way and Santos has not improved in the polls. Or come March when congressional elections show Santos supporting parties have tanked.

What better time for Vargas Lleras to step forward and offer Colombians a bit of charismatic leadership?

Cometh the hour.

Read our political biography of German Vargas Lleras.

Category: Comment, Elections
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President Santos to win 2014 election

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos will be re-elected in 2014 according to nationwide poll released tomorrow.

Despite an approval rate as low as 29 per cent, Santos` candidature appears unstoppable as Colombians show even less faith in his likely opponents, right-winger Oscar Ivan Zuluaga and leftie Clara Lopez. Read more…

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Are Colombia’s voters insane?

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Is Colombia doomed continually to repeat the errors of her past?

Albert Einstein argues insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The recent wave of protests against neoliberal agricultural and healthcare policy carried out by medicine students and farmers, and supported by the general population, certainly reflect widespread clamor for “different results” regarding the way Colombia is being governed. Paradoxically, the same people who protest and demand “different results” seem intent on voting for the same people and parties that got us into this mess.

Any Colombian intent on voting for the likes of Partido de la U, Uribe Centro Democrático, Partido Liberal, Partido Conservador, Cambio Radical, PIN and the likes of these pro-global capitalism, clientelist and nepotist parties, who somehow expects a better becoming for Colombia because of this electoral choice, should be sent to the psychiatrist – according to Einstein, of course. The progressive concentration of resources and power which the members of these parties have shamelessly, and in a corrupt manner, assured themselves, supplemented by their alignment with global-capitalism, have left Colombia in its actual state of extreme inequality, crisis and general nonconformity.  Paradoxically, somehow, people still consider these parties as viable options.

Are Colombians who vote for these parties truly insane? Perhaps, but before we pass sentence on those citizens who continuously vote for the same corrupt idiots and yet complain about the shameful state of our country, we should revise the concept of the ruling ideology in our times. According to philosopher Slavoj Zizek, ideology today works through the following mental exercise; “(“I know very well…”) and the subject of the enunciation (“…nevertheless I act as if I didn’t”)”.

A theoretical example of today’s ruling ideology would be “I know very well that all ethnic cultures are equal in value, yet, nevertheless, I will act as if mine is superior”. A latent, everyday example of today’s ruling ideology in Colombia is “I know very well that parties like Partido de la U, Uribe Centro Democrático, Partido Liberal, Partido Conservador, Cambio Radical, PIN have governed Colombia is the worst possible manner only catering to their member’s personal interests at the expense of the general population, yet, nevertheless, I will act as if my vote for these parties implies a better future.” This is ideology at its purest.

In other words, those Colombians who choose to vote for the before mentioned parties might not be insane, but the ideology which they practice certainly leads them to vote as if they were truly, genuinely insane. Of course, this comes as no surprise, the only way in which the sort of people who govern us can reach the posts they reach through popular vote (despite evident and brave exceptions of good politicians) is by being elected through the ideology of insanity.

Sadly, the ideology of insanity works in two directions. Not only does it perpetuate bad politicians in power, it also might keep good politicians from reaching power. Here, Antonio Navarro Wolff comes to mind. Even though Navarro-Wolff was declared as the best mayor in Colombia (over Antanas Mockus) while he was Mayor of Pasto, due to his outstanding results, and even though he was declared as the best Governor in the country when he governed Nariño, for achieving equally impressive policy outcomes, a large number of people immediately discard him as a presidential option.

The reason is none other than he is a leftist. Again ideology is clear, the ideological paradox I know very well that because of his leftist ideals Navarro has been a successful governor and mayor, nevertheless, I act as if left-leaning individuals were incapable of governing is clearly at work in many of Navarro´s detractors, before he has even presented his presidential proposal, or even before it is certain that he will be running for the presidency.

The ideology of insanity is certainly a worrying phenomenon, despite its long lasting historic tradition in Colombia. Today, ignorance and the mass media uphold this ideology. Of course, there are also psychoanalytic factors in each ideologized individual that hunger for such ideology.

Most nations in the continent have surpassed their ideological limitations and have been able to elect leaders from new political and social sectors which have, in many cases, delivered wonderful results while improving the quality of life of their citizens. With the upcoming electoral year in 2014, there is no question that Colombia can only guarantee a better becoming by getting rid of its ideology of insanity. Optimism is scarce however, despite all the current upheaval and discontent, ideology is hardly ever defeated by facts.

Category: Comment
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Santos and the re-election no one wants

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Colombia`s Presidential election race is wide open say nationwide polls.

President Santos`chances of holding on to power next May appear to be dwindling as confidence in his administration falls to a record low and fewer than 1 in 5 Colombians promise to vote for his re-election. Read more…

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Pablo Escobar, and Alvaro Uribe´s political suicide

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Arise Senator Alvaro Uribe.

Colombia´s controversial, but charismatic and popular former president will stand in next March´s congressional elections. Victory is assured for Uribe who heads up a closed list of candidates of which around 20 hopefuls could sweep to power.

But the decision to place Jose Obdulio Gaviria (JOG, picture above), cousin of Pablo Escobar Gaviria, ninth on that list threatens to overshadow Mr Uribe´s return to the stage, reducing the election campaign to a zero-sum mud fight.

Jose Obdulio Gaviria is Uribe´s biggest tactical blunder to date, ensuring this election campaign has gone negative before it has even started.

Is Uribe committing a slow political suicide?

¡Ojo! Colombia Politics here expresses no view on the legal appropriateness or not of the prospect of Senator JOG, nor do we seek to judge his past on evidence we have not seen.

Simply put, even if we were cheerleaders for JOG we would continue to see his inclusion on Uribe´s list as a bizarre and politically counter-intuitive move.

Here´s why:

Chief adviser during the Casa de Nariño years, Jose Obdulio Gaviria is a figure that divides opinion. In truth there are those that passionately cannot abide the man. There are those who even accuse him of directly working with his cousin Escobar´s Medellin Cartel.

Former President Andres Pastrana – himself a victim of kidnapping at the hands of Escobar´s mafia – has warned that a Senator JOG would represent a victory for narcotraffickers, while the Galan boys (Senator Juan Manuel, and ex corruption Tzar Carlos Fernando) – sons of murdered former presidential candidate, Luis Carlos Galan have complained the result would be an affront to the victims of Escobar´s reign of terror.

Since JOG’s inclusion on the senate list was made seven days ago, a chorus of disapproval has been sounded, and not only in political circles but also across the national media.

Although JOG vehemently denies it, he stands accused not only of visiting Escobar on a regular basis while the drug kingpin was “imprisoned” in the infamous Catedral (a sort of playground prison built by Escobar himself), but also of receiving campaign donations from “El Patron del Mal”.

Roberto “El Osito” Escobar (Pablo´s brother) has even claimed he had worked with JOG, but later retracted the statement.

JOG´s defence has been that it is all heresay – often promoted by those on the far left attempting to divert attention from their own questionable relationships with “armed illegal groups”.  He claims – understandably enough – that he cannot be blamed for the sins of his family. Nothing has stuck, says JOG. Innocent until proven guilty.

Colombia Politics cannot claim to know more about JOG than anyone else. The editor has met Señor Gaviria on two occasions and found him to be not unpleasant, polite even. What we think about the evidence against him is largely irrelevant, and we would encourage caution ahead of wrongful public conviction.

But politically the point is not whether JOG did or didn´t have relations with Escobar, as Clinton might have said, but rather the effect these accusations and his presence on the list will have on Uribe´s bid to return to the stage.

Uribe himself is unbeatable. Millions still credit him with saving Colombia from the abyss. When the hardline former Governor of Antioquia came to power in 2002, the FARC had a presence in 50% of the nation´s municipalities. By the time he had left, the terrorist group had been pushed back into their mountain hideouts.

Despite this popularity, however, there are many who consider Uribe to be tainted by alleged links to Colombia´s right wing paramilitary groups. Since leaving office, accusations of shady dealings have increased and the bespectacled polemicist even faces trial in his home city, Medellin.

No smoking gun has emerged, and Uribe continues to deny any links to these groups. Accused does not mean guilty.

But again, whether or not Uribe did does or ever had any links to these illegal groups is not the issue here. Politics is about perceptions. Ok, so no mud has stuck, and no flames have yet been identified, but Uribe needs like a hole in the head someone around whom there is already plenty of smoke. Unfortunately for Jose Obdulio Gaviria he has the potential to remind Colombians of a past they wish to forget.

For many Colombians the insinuations about Uribe´s background are enough; they will never vote for him in a million years.

But for many millions who have been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, for those who remember fondly his time in office – or begrudgingly accept that the ends justified the means – will the thought of JOG in the Senate be just enough to turn them off, to look elsewhere to mark their X?

From now until March political opponents will run relentless campaigns linking JOG to Escobar. It is all we will hear. In politics they say the worst crime is to let the opposition define you. Well, Uribe has made President Santos´life a whole lot easier in doing just that.

Uribe himself might not be dead in the water. The political suicide I´m referring to is not his own, but of his movement.

Why hamstring the changes of winning those 20 senators, or more?

Why hamstring your presidential candidate, Pacho Santos?

Why let your opponents drown out your arguments?

Politics is a ruthless game. Uribe claims JOG is on the list out of loyalty. Fine, admirable even, but loyalty is useless in defeat.

Politics is also the art of the possible. To make your job more difficult – or less possible – is to shoot yourself in the foot.

Suicide? Perhaps not, but if the Centro Democratico movement fails to get on its feet, Uribe will only have himself to blame.

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My afternoon with Santos

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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.

Category: Comment, News Review
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President Santos needs help, and fast

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Ask yourself this question. How many faces of Juan Manuel Santos´ cabinet do you recognize? Be honest. One, maybe? Two, perhaps? I´m guessing even the hardiest of politicos would struggle to name more than three or four.

With the exception of the Vice President Angelino Garzón, the Defence Minister Juan Carlos Pinzón, and housing minister Vargas Lleras, the government´s top team is largely anonymous. This is bad for democracy, bad for the government, and potentially life threatening for Santos´ re-election hopes.

Last August JMS shook up his team.  He was responding to a dramatic fall in public confidence in him following the Justice Reform bill debacle.  That reshuffle, however, has had very little positive effect in terms of public opinion. The current crop of ministers might be good bureaucrats, they might even be decent law makes, but politics is also about message, about communication and leadership. And in this area they are falling dramatically short.

We know that Santos is acutely conscious that his government is failing to communicate. So why does he stick with a team that appears camera shy? Mr President, how often do your ministers take to the airwaves either to make or defend their case?

When was the last time we heard your transport minister speak, for example? Infrastructure is one of Colombia´s most pressing concerns, yet I can´t remember a time when Cecilia Álvarez (no, I can´t picture her face either) appeared on TV or radio to tell us what she´s doing about it.

What too of your health minister Alejandro Gaviria, of whom we all had high hopes? Sure, he appeared on television once or twice last month to announce his new reform but has since appeared to scuttle back to the corridors of power.

And your interior minister, or your justice minister, do we know anything of them? Who has come out to promise change in the appalling conditions in our prisons? Where are the announcements on measures to curb the corruption that´s putting a huge break on the nation´s economic development and scaring off inward investment?

The time has come Mr President for you to bring out the knives.

Santos needs a new cabinet of real politicians – not bureaucrats. He needs campaigners; people who will defend and fight for the government. All successful governments rely on “hard nuts”, “bruisers”, “heavy weights” to retaliate and lay some punches on the opposition.

At the moment the opposition is having all the fun. Uribe and Robledo on the right and the left respectively are running rings around the government. And if the campaign is already nasty, it´s going to get a lot worse once the Uribistas have chosen a candidate for the 2014 fight.

Santos cannot afford to stick with the political deadwood if he wants to be re-elected.

The problem with the cabinet is not just that it is full of – in the eyes of the public – nobodies. It is also far too Bogotano. The President needs urgently to find some regional faces.

Senator Amando Benedetti has called this the “Country club” cabinet in which the ministers “speak more English than Spanish”. For critics, Santos has surrounded himself with his mates, with a Bogotá-centric-strato-25 elite that has more in common with we Europeans and North Americans than with a family from Pasto, Popayán or Putumayo, Montería, Manizales or Mitú.

So If Santos´ team is seen as being out of touch with the nation, how can it hope to fight for votes? Especially so when you consider that Uribe´s real strength is in the countryside, across the regions. He could hoover up support here while Santos retreats to his urban, liberal base.

This, Santos´ third year in office, is supposed to be one of results. Traditionally the legislature is slow as politicians start to return to their bases to whip up support for the forthcoming election fight. So now more than ever Santos needs a group of politicians – a team – ready and able to go out and sell the government´s achievements.  He doesn´t need law makers, he needs communicators.

If Santos were a caudillo his cabinet wouldn´t matter. If Santos were even an Obama, or a Clinton, or a Blair perhaps it wouldn´t matter, either. But for all his qualities, Santos is not a politician for the media age.

If Santos´ advisers can´t see that the very worst thing for this president is to force him to struggle on with a cabinet that has zero public profile then they should be sacked. He needs help, and fast.

It´s premature to suggest the Santos Presidency is in danger of going out with a whimper; after all he still holds most of the bureaucratic cards. But unless changes are made to the top table, the ride will be unnecessarily bumpy and journey´s end unnecessarily difficult to predict.

This article was commissioned by The City Paper.

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Santos: coffee strikes used as political football

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Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos accused politicians from across the spectrum of “taking advantage” of the coffee protests which ended on Friday after two weeks of national strikes.

Santos yesterday labelled as “opportunists” those who sided with the coffee farmers. Although no names were mentioned, it was clear Santos was referring both to Polo Democrat Senator Jorge Enrique Robledo on the left, and ex-president, Alvaro Uribe on the right, both of whom had taken to the airwaves throughout the last fortnight to criticize the government´s position.

As the strikes began, the government attempted to paint the protests as the work of the Uribistas, something the coffee farmers strongly refute, and something for which there appears to be very little public evidence. Robledo himself started his political career standing up for the rights of coffee growers, but he too is thought to have very little to do with the mobilization of the farmers.

For many, Santos is attempting to distract attention away from his inability to react to the situation as it developed over the last two weeks.

The president has watched events spiralled out of his control. After attempting to close the story down, Santos was forced, as food shortages kicked in, to dispatch his Vice President Angelino Garzón to the front line to negotiate direct with the farmers. Until last Wednesday, Santos had thought he could play the strikes out.

The government climb-down – and its acceptance of the need to deal direct with the farmers – produced almost immediate results as Garzón took just 48 hours to emerge with an agreement that put an end the road blocks.

There is little love lost between the President and his Vice President and Santos´ego will have been wounded by his VP´s ability – unlike his own – to connect with the campesino communities, who, as one coffee farmer told Colombia Politics is seen “almost as one of us”.

Santos´ presidency has taken a hit over the last months, with his popularity plummeting. The government´s inept handling of the strikes has only added to the feeling that the administration is in need of a major revamp. But Santos´remarks are unlikely to win him any new fans. Public opinion has largely been with the coffee farmers, and certainly against the government´s crisis management tactics.

Santos has appeared crass, and coffee farmers will no doubt take this as further evidence that the man from Bogotá has little interest in, or sympathy with, rural Colombia.

This is an image that Santos desperately needs to overcome if he is to be succesful in his re-election bid. Blaming political opponents for attacking him on an issue he, as head of state, was obligated to handle with greater aplomb seems churlish, and counter productive.

As we move towards the pre-election cycle, Santos must better equip his team of advisers, they have been damagingly below par for far too long.

Category: Comment