#elections

How to prevent another Mayor Gustavo Petro

A Colombian casts his ballot during legislative elections in Bogota

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.

German Vargas Lleras – Presidente?

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Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos appeared on Friday to throw his weight behind top cabinet ally, housing minister German Vargas Lleras’ possible tilt at the presidency in 2018.

Rumours of Santos’ support for the popular and charismatic Vargas Lleras have circulated for over two years, but confirmation of the president’s wishes were revealed to La FM listeners 48 hours ago:  “He has all the necessary qualities to be president, and I would like to see him in this role one day”.

Just a fortnight ago Vargas Lleras reiterated his unconditional support for Santos and is not expected to run should his boss decide to pitch for re-election in 2014. Vargas Lleras is likely to play a major role in this campaign – using it is a platform for 2018.  His work as interior and housing minister is central to the Santos regime’s efforts to present a progressive platform.

Vargas Lleras is part of Colombia’s political oligarchy, grandson of 60s president Carlos Lleras Restrepo and  is currently in charge of delivering a programme of free housing to the nation’s poor. This role has helped him to continue to grow the popular base of support not only crucial for his electoral mathematics, but also in his “positioning” as a One Nation politician.

During the La FM interview Santos hinted at the working relationship between the two men who are said to share the same instinctively liberal politics. Like Santos, Vargas Lleras left the Liberal Party early this century to establish an alternative movement; while Santos formed the U Party, Vargas Lleras became the head of the Cambio Radical party, the group from which he launched the 2010 presidential campaign.

Since joining the Santos government, Vargas Lleras has been consistently cited as a top performing minister and also as a successor to Santos.  Assuming Santos is re-elected in 2014 he is almost certain to face a congress much less willing to bend over backwards for him as it has done over the last two years. Ex President Alvaro Uribe, now the most vocal opposition politician in the land is set to launch a list of candidates for the congress a number of which have a very real prospect of becoming elected. Should this happen, congress will be divided and Santistas will find their power reduced significantly.

A possible scenario is that Vargas Lleras, a consummate congressional politician, returns to front Santos’ relations with the parliament, providing him with the profile and visibility necessary to attack the Uribista rump – quite conceivably the largest or second largest group in the senate.

In this case, with Santos unable to run for a second re-election, Vargas Lleras would be anointed his bosses successor to fight against an Uribista candidate in 2018.

Is this mere futurology? Quite possibly.

A week is famously a long time in politics, so five years is a life time. Nevertheless, as unpredictable as Colombian politics can be, it is almost a universal truth that those who belong to the top political families end up in the top political jobs.  Vargas Lleras is as talented as he is ambitious, as charismatic as he is experienced. A right-wing liberal who has delivered for the poor. It sounds a very possible winning combination.

Interview Senator John Sudarsky, part two

Senator John Sudarsky spoke to Colombia Politics about democracy, Colombia´s political system, the challenges the country faces, the peace talks with the FARC, and his proposed reform to the electoral process.

This is the second extract from the interview where Senator Sudarsky analyzes the fault lines in Colombia´s democracy and sets out why his reform of the electoral system would deliver greater accountability and voter representation.

In tomorrow´s installment, Senator Sudarsky details how his electoral reform bill would work were it to make it onto the statute book.

Thanks to Notedije Producciones for filming and editing the interview.

Uribe v Silva: Colombia´s combative democracy

Colombia´s Ex-President Alvaro Uribe went to war this week with his former defence minister Gabriel Silva in what Colombia Politics sees as the start of a long and ugly election campaign for 2014.

Uribe accused his old comrade, who was in post for the final year of government following President Santos´departure (to kick start his election campaign), of being a “social climber”, an “inept bureaucrat”, and an “opportunist”. Uribe also threatened to sue Silva for remarks the latter made about the ex-president´s reluctance to order a mission against FARC top brass Iván Márquez who, at the time, was hiding out in Venezuela.

Silva, an uber loyal member of President Juan Manuel Santos´ inner circle, had earlier in the week written a polemic attack on Uribe´s speech to last month´s U Party general assembly meeting, a piece that ignited the indignation of Uribistas and appeared to delight President Santos who promptly retweeted the article to his near 1.5 million followers.

Many see the president´s decision to forward the article as an implicit endorsement of Silva´s words. Since coming to power Santos has remained true to his promise not attack his former boss. But the gloves have now come off. At the U Party gathering Santos, although refusing to name his predecessor, criticised the action of the “ruffians” who came to event to try to show who was boss. Now, three weeks later and it appears as through Silva has been given a let off the leash – the president´s attack dog (allowing Santos himself to remain above the fray.

Colombia´s media is in almost universal agreement that this battle is unsavoury, and demeaning, concluding that both Silva and Uribe are set to see a negative effect on their standing among voters. For Silva this matters less, as he is a virtually unknown entity. The election aspiring Uribe, on the other hand, has more to lose, something Santos – the ultimate chess player – has quite clearly calculated.

Santos´ short and medium term electoral tactic will be to marginalize Uribe and try to cast him as an extremist, drunk on power and willing to promise and say anything to get back onto the national political stage. Uribe appears dangerously close to falling into this trap.

Shrillness will, in the long run harm Uribe. His base of supporters will remain but he will find it increasingly difficult to reach out to those in the centre, to build the coalition he needs, and he once relied on.

The media are wrong too to allow Santos to win this battle so easily. Sure, it was an odd move for Uribe to threaten legal action against Silva, but there is nothing inherently wrong with verbal conflict and a clash of ideas in the political process. By pretending that there is the media consciously or unconsciously negatively spin Uribe´s actions.

Colombia has long suffered from a certain tyranny of unanimity in which the president is the only figure that counts, and where –organized – opposition is virtually non-existent.

Opposition is healthy – indeed necessary – for democracy, and bloody, ugly, vicious fights are what all good, mature parliaments are made of. It is the way the voters find out the truth and they way politicians are forced to defend their decisions. It´s accountability, stupid.

The Colombian media complain of the so-called polarization of the nation as though it were a bad thing that not everyone agrees with the president, as though having a choice before the electorate were a vulgar and unwanted nuisance.

Colombia´s political oligarchy and closed political class has led the media to expect patrician governments. The history tells us that for decades the Conservative and Liberal parties alternated power, operating a virtual pact – “it´s your turn this time, and our turn next”.

Uribe´s campaign to return to power through the senate is forcing the governing classes to view politics differently, to begin to understand that bureaucracy is one thing, and that participative open democracy quite another.

The media may not like the fight much but they should rejoice it. Not only will it provide them with acres of column inches, it is also a sign of the birth of a more direct and combative politics.

Long may the fight live on.