Communist FARC sympathisers were this week kicked out of Colombia’s main opposition party, the Democratic Pole (PDA) by leader Clara López.
Using the news that the Communist Party are to join forces with Piedad Córdoba’s controversial Marcha Patriótica which is accused of being the political front for the guerrilla group, López has acted swiftly to purge extremists and to halt the Polo’s drift to the far-left.
Communist Party Leader, Carlos Lozano has of course reacted with indignation, labelling López’s moves ‘illegal’. But after a disastrous month for the left in which it has lost the support of large sections of society following its public support for Hugo Chávez’s re-election in Venezuela, and for appearing to side with indigenous groups over the army during the attacks in Cauca, López might just have saved her party from obliteration.
Polo – a party in perpetual revolution?
The PDA was formed in 2005 as a left-wing alternative to the centre and right-wing politics that predominate in Colombia. As a conglomeration of groups and movements from across the left, the party has always appeared pluralist and has tended to splits and vacillation on policy decisions. Electorally, success has been evident if not overwhelming.
The highlights have been the election of Samuel Moreno as Mayor of Bogota in 2007, and also in the capture of the department of Nariño from where governor Antonio Navarro Wolf has become one of the country’s most recognisable opposition politicians. In congress there are eight senators and five representatives in the second chamber, and in the presidential elections of 2010, the Polo’s candidate, Gustavo Petro came a very respectable fourth.
But the PDA is in perpetual crisis. Unable to stick together after the elections of 2010, the party lost its main star performer, Petro, who, in protest at the lack of will to tackle the corruption within the group, set up his own party, the Progressives with whom he won the Bogota mayoral election last year. Support for the left has been split and natural Polo voters have been leaving in droves to support Petro’s Progressives – crucially three senators made the same journey last month.
In January, Clara López returned to lead the party following a successful stint as the caretaker mayor of Bogota. Her job is to prepare PDA for the elections in 2014, to establish a credible policy platform and to strengthen the unity and party machine ahead of the campaign.
The left’s opportunity
This website has argued that the PDA need to unite and move towards the centre, to gain a level of elect-ability. López herself has performed well, but her party appears determined to implode.
Last month this website reported on the study commissioned by the left-wing think tank, Nuevo Arco Iris which revealed that around a third of the Colombian electorate is prepared to vote for a presidential candidate from the left. In theory – found the report – with a likeable, centrist figure capable of uniting the entire movement there is an outside chance of victory. For me victory is out of reach, but a respectable second and a place in the run-off is a possibility.
The PDA ought to use this once-in-a-generation-opportunity to pull together. The imperative is to establish a narrative based on a series of attractive policies that can be sold to the majority of Colombians who are not attracted by the far-left statism that typifies Latin American socialism. The problem for the party is that it is doing precisely the opposite.
Pushing the self-destruction button?
Last month the PDA came out publicly in support of Hugo Chávez’s re-election campaign. Chávez is loathed in Colombia for his support for the FARC and his resulting complicity in the murder of thousands of Colombians. For a political party that wants to win an election, lending support to ‘enemy number one’ for millions of compatriots is naive and self-indulgent.
López is not naive, though. She understood that the seriousness of PDA was beginning to be questioned – that arresting this decline in support as become a political necessity.
The announcement from the Communist group within the PDA that it was join the Marcha Patriótica is therefore manna from heaven. By expelling the group, López shows the doubters that she will not tolerate hardliners in her ranks. The Communists departure was explained to be a legal decision (in Colombia politicians can’t represent two parties) rather than a once taken on ideological grounds. Most people will, however, read between the lines.
Make no mistake, any link with the Marcha Patriótica would have been electorally fatal for the PDA. The movement is headed by Piedad Córdoba the famous face of the far-left who was thrown out of the parliament in 2010 for her alleged links with the FARC. Córdoba is for many in Colombia a figure of hate – a mouthpiece for the guerrillas.
Last month videos emerged of the ex-senator inciting indigenous communities to rise up against the government and throw out the army. Days after Córdoba’s speech, indigenous groups attacked and threatened the army who were engaged in combat with the FARC in the department of Cauca. Colombians doubted this was coincidental.
For many in the country, including the Defence Minister, Pinzón, the Marcha Patriótica is the political wing of the guerrilla group. In Cartagena last week, Pinzón confirmed that the Marcha is ‘financed in good part by the terrorist organisation the FARC’.
There is much work that must be done if the Democratic Pole is to regain political credibility. López has saved it – for now – from destruction, but she must continue to fight to marginalise those with a socialist vision for Colombia. The PDA’s eventual programme for government must be moderate and based on change rather than revolution.
The question is whether the left care about winning or whether they want to remain on the fringes of power – the smart money appears to be on the latter.