Four years ago, in the 2019 mayoral and gubernatorial elections in Colombia, the all-powerful political class, the same one that has made corruption and vote buying its trademark and seal, was defeated. When they least expected it, Colombians voted to open the field to new independent parties and voices that saved the hope that many of us had lost since 2016, when we failed to accept the peace agreement signed by the government of Juan Manuel Santos were able to support the FARC. , and peace slipped away from us.
Four years have passed since then and the prospects for these new elections could not be bleaker. Everything suggests that we are running backwards like crabs, back into the same rot as always, and that the big loser will be hope.
Four years ago, in the 2019 elections, Colombia experienced a revelation. When many of us Colombians already believed that it was impossible to change the way politics is done in the regions, the unexpected happened. For the first time, Colombians voted to open the field to a number of independent movements and parties that appealed to the opinion vote. Strangely, these new voices did not include Gustavo Petro’s left. His movement, Colombia Humana, received 0.3% of the vote and only managed to elect Julián Conrado, a former FARC guerrilla and composer of revolutionary corridos, as the new mayor of Turbaco, a small town near Cartagena.
The novelty and oxygen came from a relatively new party, the Green Alliance, which had sought to select center-left candidates who had no ties to the electoral apparatus.
In Colombia, parties have evolved into bureaus specializing in supporting politicians with unpresentable resumes. Since the parties no longer represent much, the power of regional politics has fallen to mafia power structures that we Colombians know as clans.
The new votes elected four years ago hit these clans and their coming to power created the illusion that there would be changes in the way politics is done in Colombia. This breath of fresh air was particularly noticeable in Claudia López’s triumph in Bogotá.
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It was the first time that an overwhelming woman with progressive ideas, a lesbian who had also dedicated her life to denigrating the corrupt and political crooks who coexisted with the paramilitaries and drug trafficking mafias, controlled the capital’s fortunes. His party, the Green Alliance, was also a new bet, contrasting with the other parties who only appear at election time to refine their “cvy” (how am I doing in return). These clans act as voting machines in which votes are purchased like commodities and campaigns are financed by contractors who seek remuneration through contracts after their candidate is elected.
In the 2019 elections, the Green Alliance proposed a different path and Colombians voted for this illusion. But the party won not only in Bogotá, but also in Cali with Jorge Iván Ospina, a left-wing politician, son of an M-19 guerrilla, who had already been mayor of that city. In Manizales, an intermediate city where there was not much voting, Carlos Mario Marín, a politician considered one of the most promising figures in the municipality, was elected by the same party.
A separate chapter was the triumph of Daniel Quintero in Medellín, the second largest city in Colombia, considered the fortress of Uribism. Quintero was a young politician who had started out in the Tomato Party, a movement that eliminated all the corrupt politicians who was wasting Medellín’s budgets. Without much resources, Quintero ran an express campaign that was successful. His victory was not only a defeat for Uribism, but also the unmistakable sign that good news was ahead for the dull and predictable Colombian politics. What came, however, was disappointment.
The Green Alliance, the party that was supposed to be the great hope for change, is in the worst crisis of its short history. It is divided, awash in infighting between those who want to support Petro’s government and those who believe that anti-Petrism is the way to come to power in the next presidential election in 2026.
Claudia Lopez, from whom so much was expected, leaves the mayor’s office without leaving much of a mark and with very low popularity ratings. His xenophobic comments against Venezuelans, which he blamed for increasing insecurity in the capital, his insistence on maccarting the young people who went to protest in the wake of the pandemic, and the crude way in which he ultimately used the power of Venezuelans The mayor’s office. To pave their desire for the presidency, they displayed a spirit unknown to them. Today’s Claudia López has become a politician who does more of the same and seems willing to sell her soul to the devil to achieve the presidency. Not even a trace remains of this independent and distant Claudia López, who dared to use her name to say things that many of us knew and admired.
Let’s not even talk about the mayor of Cali. It will come to light amid the corruption scandals and mismanagement that are bringing this city to its knees. And as for the mayor of Manizales, who was supposed to be the great hope of the Greens, he was embroiled in scandal for signing a cooperation agreement with municipal funds aimed at teaching English to his subjects with a country that does not exist. is called Libertland.
And Daniel Quintero in Medellín ended up behaving like any other chief, even though he was the great hope. He got off to a good start when he managed to regain power over the Medellín Energy Company, one of the most important in the country, but along the way he became entangled and eventually allied himself with highly controversial political forces that had their backs pull yourself over. In the end, he resigned from the mayor’s office to support his candidate, who appears to be underperforming in the polls. In Medellín, Fico, Federico Gutiérrez, the candidate of the Notablato, will win from the right, from the center and even from the center-left. Quintero’s government was so disastrous that it managed to unite everyone against him.
In these elections there are candidates who have already been selected due to the power that the clans have. This is the case of Álex Char, who will be mayor of Barranquilla for the third time, although he is under investigation for vote buying and attempted murder, which he shares with his imprisoned brother, former Congress President Arturo Carbon.
In Cesar, the land of the Vallenato and the yellow butterflies, the candidate of the Gnecco is elected, a clan made up of several members of the same family and accused by the judiciary of being part of a criminal organization dealing in gasoline smuggling, and who appears to be responsible for several murders. Although their boss, Cielo Gnecco, is a fugitive from justice, everything indicates that their candidate, Elvia San Juan, will become governor of Cesar. I hope I’m wrong.
Women’s participation in these elections has declined and of the few who have come forward, only a minority are gender conscious and identify as feminists. The majority are women who ended up in politics because they inherited their electoral wealth from their husbands, because many of them are either paying a fine for corruption or have already paid it and cannot return to politics.
All the space gained for opinion voting four years ago is being taken over by the Clans and their tentacles. They will be the big winners of this Sunday’s elections.
Petrismo, who is running in these elections for the first time after winning the presidency, was also left in debt. The coalition made up of several left-wing movements and parties, which had a large number of votes in the congressional elections, was unable to field candidates who represented change and, on the contrary, in many departments the left ended up supporting candidates from the quarries of the clientelistic politics.
It will be boring, corrupt, predictable and hopeless elections.
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