Colombian Senator Juan Lozano this month launches a campaign to change the way mayors are elected in Colombia’s cities, helping to prevent future victories for leaders as unpopular as Bogotá’s Gustavo Petro.
Lozano will present a new bill “as soon as congress returns”, which if passed, would force candidates to face a “second round run-off” should they fail to secure more than 45% of the vote. Petro famously won only a third of the votes in the 2010 Bogotá race, as a slew of establishment candidates split the field. Had Petro needed to face a head-to-head battle he would almost certainly have lost, as candidates coalesced in opposition to his controversial brand of government.
Were Lozano’s plans to get the go ahead from parliamentarians, eight mayoral races are expected to be affected, although as population rises continue, this number has the potential to increase in future years.
Senator Lozano believes this legislation is necessary to avoid the concentration of power in the unelectable. According to the once president of Juan Manuel Santos’ U Party, the changes will force candidates to present government programmes that have appeal beyond their “base”. In the case of Petro, for example, it is often argued that he has failed to govern for the whole of Bogotá, choosing instead to concentrate on what he considers to be his natural supporters. As a result, Petro has polarized the capital when a strong and uniting leadership is required after years of woeful administration.
In an interview with the newspaper El Tiempo, Lozano also revealed his bill will include a provision for a revision of the constitution to permit the re-election of mayors and governors. Under current laws, such regional politicians are restricted to one, four-year term. Lozano believes that, following the amendment applied in 2006 to allow the then President Alvaro Uribe to fight for a second period in office, there is little logic in limiting the nation’s second-tier leaders the same opportunity.
For Colombia Politics, Lozano’s measures are welcome improvements to what is essentially an anti-democratic status quo. It is, at least on a philosophical level, against the principles of democracy to prevent the electorate from keeping in power a successful and popular politician.
It is also the case that the prospect of re-election is often what drives politicians to respond to and represent better their voters. Nothing sharpens the mind quite like the spectre of an ignominious and humiliating defeat at the polls. Politicians who have at least one eye on keeping the electorate on side tend to do a better job. We as voters too will be more demanding of our leaders if we feel we have to live with them for possibly eight years.
And as for Petro…the campaign to revoke his mandate is under way. The mayor’s unpopularity is almost unparalleled, and he has only been in power for a year. Why? Quite simply, Petro is as far removed as it is possible from the idea of a centrist administrator who governs for the whole of the city.
Lozano is right to point to the short comings in Colombia’s democracy. Had his law been in place beforehand, perhaps Bogotá would have been spared the divisive Gustavo Petro, and the capital would have in power a leader determined to work for all, not just the few.