Ivan Duque will emerge victorious today, he may even win by an absolute margin meaning there’s no need for a second round run off. But I suspect the polls may be exaggerating his support, and he may well lose a bit of momentum.
Gustavo Petro should come second. The hard leftist was recorded last night claiming he will enter into a coalition agreement of sorts with De La Calle and Fajardo, two of the centrist candidates running today. That will make the second round run off very interesting.
If it is Duque v Petro, Duque wins. Petro is loved by the kids and the left, but he is loathed by too many voters for him to win in a two horse race. He’ll care very little, and will over night become the most powerful left wing politician in the land. Petro will enjoy being the most outspoken opponent of the Duque Uribe regime; his spitfire brand of politics is suited only to opposition, not to government.
German Vargas Lleras is polling in single digits, but this is Colombia and he could well still win. He has the backing of Colombian elite, the money, and the ‘machinery’ and the alleged (although no one denies it) vote-buying that comes with this. There may be plenty to admire in his programme for government, but Vargas Lleras is a divisive politician, and his alliances make supporting him morally questionable.
If Duque does win, and I expect he will, Colombia will be run by a tandemocracy, reminiscent of the Putin Medvedev years, in Russia. Duque is not quite a puppet as the left and the foreign correspondents try to paint him. But, he is certainly in the shadow of his political patron, Alvaro Uribe.
Uribe has won all but one election since 2002. In 2014 he lost to Santos, but he had an uncharismatic candidate in Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, and Santos had all the levers (and largesse) of the state behind him. A sitting president in Latin America is almost impossible to remove. For many Colombians, Uribe remains the most compelling politician they have ever had.
The peace process was always doomed. Santos, after winning the Nobel Peace Prize appears to have lost interest in implementing the agreement. Far from atoning for their crimes, the FARC are accused of continuing them. While, Ivan Marquez, the ‘elected’ (that means anointed) senator, has chosen not to take up his position, but instead to run for the hills.
Santos leaves the nation divided. There is a sense that 8 years have been lost, or wasted. The sheer scale of corruption has boggled the mind, while the billions of dollars spent by an ever expanding treasury have made little progress on healthcare, education, or law and order.
The constitution was changed back by Santos, meaning his successor has only one term. But, surely, if Duque wins, Uribe will be able to replace him with another before the 2022 election.
That election is likely to be a re-run of this. Duque mark 2, versus Petro the polemicist.
You see, in Colombia everything changes so everything stays the same.
I’ve written more on this over at expat-chronicles.com and I’ll be writing again on what happens today, and on the legacy of the Santos years. I arrived in Colombia when Santos was fighting Antanas Mockus, in 2010. It will be good to see him go.