Colombia decides: Go with Gutiérrez or plump for Petro?

@wwaycorrigan

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In just over a month, 29 May 2022 to be precise, Colombians go to the polls to elect their next president.

In the left corner, Gustavo Petro. And in the right-ish corner, Federico "Fico" Gutiérrez. (Photos from https://www.facebook.com/gustavopetrourrego/photos/ & https://federicogutierrez.com/.) 

Fico fights back

There are two things that we can take as virtually certain at this stage. One is that the country's next leader will be a man. The other is that this man won't be declared the winner on 29 May.

The reason for the latter is that for a candidate to win the presidency in the first round, he/she needs more than 50 per cent of the overall valid votes cast. With eight runners currently in the field for the nation's top job and polls showing no runaway favourite, it's pretty much certain a run-off will be needed between the top two candidates.

That head-to-head — barring some dramatic game-changer in the coming weeks — will be between former Bogotá mayor and runner-up in the 2018 presidential election, Gustavo Petro, and Federico "Fico" Gutiérrez, former mayor of Colombia's second city, Medellín.

Opinion polls have shown the leftist Petro with a relatively consistent lead throughout for some time now. Indeed, with a split centre/centre-right vote in round one — that there is no official candidate from the party of the still popular yet divisive former president, Álvaro Uribe, the man who helped propel outgoing president Iván Duque to victory, is a factor here — it seems safe to assume the one-time guerrilla will win the first round but fall somewhat short of the magic number to obviate a second day out.

'All this has to be balanced against the idea that a leftist, former guerrilla becoming Colombia's president takes the cherished sweetness out of the morning coffee of many citizens.'

Thus, similar to 2018 (see my post from that year, Right you are Colombia, for background), the key question is, where will the votes from the losing candidates in round one go in round two?

Most observers, backed up by polling — polls do tend to be reliable in Colombia — suggest Gutiérrez (I'm loath to call him by the affectionate "Fico" monicker) will take the lion's share. This may be enough to get him over the line but it looks set to be very close. (Do note that traditionally conservative Colombia has never returned what one may consider a genuine leftist candidate.)

The country's electoral system does also allow for a valid protest/blank vote, 'voto en blanco' (see https://wwcorrigan.blogspot.com/2018/02/colombia-vote-ve-blanco-for-real-change.html). In the 2018 run-off, this took 4.2 per cent of the overall votes, an increase of three percentage points from that year's first round. In one opinion poll in March this year, 16 per cent of respondents said they would vote blank. With that in mind, this phantom candidate may play a decisive role this time.

A turnout for Petro?

Another important factor is turnout. It hovered around 54 per cent in both rounds in 2018, a rather high figure compared to all the other presidential elections this century. As a reference, turnout for this year's congressional elections in March was just over 47 per cent of registered voters, about 1.5 percentage points lower than the 2018 figure.

If turnout increases for this year's presidential election — the various controversies with voter registration in Colombia aside — and we guesstimate that this means a greater participation of younger voters, the belief is that this would be a positive for Petro.

All this has to be balanced against the idea that a leftist and former guerrilla becoming Colombia's president takes the cherished sweetness out of the morning coffee of a not-insignificant number of citizens.

Even the slightest suggestion of something socialist sees many people point to the east and the ongoing mess that is neighbouring Venezuela.

That aside, and while Petro's mayorship of Bogotá was not without its ideological battles (see https://wwcorrigan.blogspot.com/2012/12/petrograd-colombias-new-capital.html & https://blogs.eltiempo.com/wrong-way-corrigan/2014/01/24/ordonez-petro-et-al-fiddle-while-bogota-continues-to-burn/), one finds it hard to envisage a Petro presidency turning the country into the next Venezuela.

Brother countries they may be but the overall more conservative nature of Colombia means it is unlikely radical social change will occur here akin to what we've seen in Venezuela over the last twenty years. What's more, Gustavo Petro is no Hugo Chávez Frías.

Indeed, it could be argued that the most radical departure Colombians could take in this presidential election would be if voto en blanco won the day.

That won't happen. So, as a largely independent observer, if I was forced at this stage to put some of my hard-earned pesos on the outcome, I'd go with Gutiérrez. Very hesitantly, that is.
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Colombia, to de la Calle!

OK, we may need to change our preference. While we still have plenty of respect for V.E. Blanco, the sad reality is, for, um, existential reasons he won't actually physically make it to Palacio de Nariño, Colombia's presidential palace.

That being so, you still have to admire his performance ahead of the presidential first-round vote on 27 May. He's doing better than four of the seven actual candidates in the race. Only Iván Duque, Gustavo Petro and Sergio Fajardo (just about) are more popular according to the opinion polls.

De la Calle: As his name suggests, he's right at home on the streets. (Picture from Facebook.)

To the left, to the right 

Yet, taking Dr Blanco out of things, who do we endorse for Colombia's top job? For many locals, it's either the rightist Duque, the candidate of former president, the divisive Álvaro Uribe, or former Bogotá mayor and once leftist guerrilla with the defunct M-19, Petro. 

The never-again-to-be-trusted opinion polls have Duque ahead, a man who has promised to make significant adjustments to the peace agreement outgoing President Juan Manuel Santos signed with the Farc.

In many ways, it would be interesting to see how Colombia would operate under a leftist president, something it has never really had. Now, how left Petro actually is, depends on who you listen to. He talks a somewhat leftist game in any case, yet he certainly doesn't dress like a man at one with the impoverished masses.

For sure, all candidates realise the need to address the vast inequality Colombia has and they have various ideas in this regard. Yet proposals on paper are one thing, putting them into practice, quite another. Needless to say, there's no simple solution.

Fajardo the fair

Notwithstanding that, considering Duque-Petro is seen as a battle of the extremes — "A hawkish Duque presidency will result in deepening political and social division, a Petro administration will see the country slide towards socialism and potentially cripple the economy" — more moderate Colombians are looking for the centre ground. On this front, former Medellín mayor and Antioquia department governor Fajardo appears to be the preferred candidate.

He's promising to be a "president of reconciliation", playing, in a way, to that concern that a win for either of the current leading candidates will dangerously divide the country.

Of course, he's not the only centrist candidate. However, the polls have him comfortably ahead of both Germán Vargas Lleras, who had a stint as vice president under Santos, and the Liberal party's Humberto de la Calle, whose last political role was government chief negotiator in the Farc peace talks.

That the two men had important posts in the Santos administration is no doubt working against them. The electorate is looking for change and both Vargas Lleras and de la Calle have been too close to the outgoing crowd.

De la Calle: The stopgap president?

Yet, the country could do worse than taking stock of things after a few rocky years. For one, there's been that aforementioned controversial peace agreement which ended up being rejected in a referendum yet its implementation went ahead anyway. 

We've also seemingly never-ending corruption scandals and the delicate issue of streams of Venezuelans continuing to enter the country as they escape the mess they have at home.

In such an environment, an experienced, largely respected pair of hands in the shape of Humberto de la Calle could be seen as a good compromise, interim choice.

At almost 72 years of age and with his moderate background, he’s not exactly in the same mould as a Putin or Uribe. A ‘president for life’ by whatever means possible he will not be.

He's unlikely to dramatically change things, for better or for worse. However, at a time when the tendency across the globe seems to be to run to the extremes, de la Calle offers Colombia a little breather from the madness, and maybe even a bit more.

Humberto de la Calle: Steady as she goes for four short years?

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Petrograd — Colombia's new capital?

There is a joke going around Bogotá — although for many it has a modicum of truth — that the Colombian capital is going to be renamed ‘Petrograd’. 

It’s all to do with the city’s mayor, Gustavo Petro and is a reference to the many Russian cities that were renamed after political leaders during the USSR communist era.

Mayor Gustavo Petro with trademark flat cap. (Pic. from Mayor's website.)

For those of you in the dark, Petro is a former member of the far-left guerrilla group M-19. Indeed, he did time in the mid-1980s for the illegal possession of arms. 

Now, while those more radical days may be well behind him — his election as mayor perhaps a sign of that — it could be said that ‘you can take the man out of the leftist guerrillas, but you can’t take the leftist guerrilla out of the man.’ Or, the other way to look at it as we'll see is that he’s an opportunist, plain and simple — a wise way to be, perhaps.

You see, while his overall plan for the city, ‘Bogotá Humana’ (Humane Bogotá), may be full of merit, how he’s going about implementing it is a little bit more questionable. No doubt, especially considering his background, he is a visionary — or at least he has an idea of the type of Bogotá/Colombia he’d like to see emerge in the coming years. 

However, it would appear, as is the case with so many elected officials (see ‘Time for change’ http://bit.ly/TLNgLn for more on that point), that he’s now beginning to play the populist card as he positions himself to run, as he unsuccessfully did in 2010, for the country’s presidency in 2014.

Nice buses. But where are all the passengers?

Let’s take the recent roll-out of the integrated public transport system, the Sitp. Despite our well-documented ‘love’ for the more chaotic older system of buses currently doing the rounds (see ‘Dulling down Bogotá’ http://bit.ly/XdUg5U), there’s no doubt that, in theory, the integrated system, given proper support, should make commuting in Bogotá far more comfortable for everybody. 

On top of that, the introduction of a modern fleet of, hopefully, cleaner, greener buses coupled with the phasing out of the big old gas guzzlers should do the air quality (well, lack of quality at this moment in time) in the metropolis no end of good.

Now, while it is relatively early days in its introduction — this is, of course, Colombia/Latin America — all the Sitp seems to have achieved thus far is the addition of a few more buses to the already chock-a-block Bogotá streets. With those buses carrying very few passengers at that. 

You see it appears that the Petro administration is too fearful to take on the very many private buseta/colectivo operators in the city. They make up a powerful group with many of their employees the type of people the current mayor will be relying on for support in his very likely second presidential assault in less than two years.

For if the powers that be in the city want its inhabitants to start using the new blue/red buses of the currently loss-making Sitp, the quickest way to achieve this is to make it the only game in town. So that means taking the busetas/colectivos off the road. The political will to do this seems to be sorely lacking. 

The talk from officialdom is that Bogotanos must adapt and change their habits. But when you have an old system where the buses pick you up and drop you off wherever you want along the route  — i.e. there are no set stops — and you don’t always have to pay the full fare, then getting people to opt out of that without much of a carrot or stick is wishful thinking.

As much of a socialist as Petro may claim to be, the lack of meaningful support he has shown to a publicly run transport system because of a reluctance to upset private operators is a bit of a contradiction to state the least.

Looking for work in Bogotá? Check out the bins.

He is, perhaps, staying closer to his roots on the waste collection issue — though the reasons for this may be far from ideological. 

Here, the four current private operators are facing the axe, with the service due to be passed on to one publicly run company, Acueducto, which is responsible for water in the city. 

For many locals, this is a jobs-for-the-boys style move from the Petro administration. The whole plan seems ill-thought-out and highly questionable. To this end, it has more than raised eyebrows at national level, with President Juan Manuel Santos’s administration at loggerheads with Petro over the issue. 

Indeed, the national government may yet pull the plug on the scheme, which is due to get up and running on 18 December. Such a public bloody nose for Mayor Petro could have its benefits, though, selling it to the masses as national interference in his goal to clean up Bogotá — a rallying cry to bolster support.

The new water charges are not without controversy either. Whatever about making those who earn more, pay more, to let a large, densely-populated area of the city off without any charges at all could be seen as populist. 

The richest three strata in the city will have to pay for water usage once it goes over a certain prescribed amount. For the remaining three strata, there will be no water consumption charges at all. 

The thought of having to fork out for excessive water use can be an important motivation to conserve, though. Education can go so far, but people tend to learn more quickly when it hits them in the pocket.

In Petrograd, however, it’s best to keep the masses onside. Perhaps that’s the best way to play it, for now.