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The presidential elections this May 29 have a particular seasoning: the ruling right-wing party reaches the first round without its own candidate and its leader and founder, Álvaro Uribe Vélez, is on the way to losing the political predominance that he has held during the last Two decades.
“And where are the Orion people? (…) People don’t love you”. Far from the massive receptions to which he has been accustomed throughout his political life, former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe Vélez was received with phrases like this and between boos in the Comuna 13 of Medellín.
This is how they took Uribe out of Comuna 13 in Medellín. They booed him out because Antioquia changed. Medellinenses don’t want it anymore! They are not going to spread it. pic.twitter.com/8tgajXkB1P
– David Rozo (@DonIzquierdo_) January 26, 2022
His visit last January to what is now one of the most emblematic tourist sites in the country’s second largest city coincided with a somewhat honorable commemoration: this year marks two decades of a series of military interventions designed to eradicate violence in the area that , between May and October 2002, left dozens of dead, wounded and disappeared.
It is also the 20th anniversary of the rise to power of this 69-year-old right-wing politician from Antioquia -president between 2002 and 2010- who, since then, would dominate the Colombian political scene for years.
“Operation Orion”, one of those interventions, correctly illustrated what the former mayor of Medellín presented as the flagship project of his government: democratic security, a policy that he himself called “a firm hand and a big heart”, with the who promised to fight against groups outside the law and restore security to the country, historically plagued by armed conflict.
“During his first term, it was the moment in which the State achieved decisive victories over the FARC and relegated the guerrillas to the most peripheral regions of the country,” Yann Basset, professor of Political Science at the Universidad del Rosario, explains to France 24.
Álvaro Uribe held the Presidency for two consecutive terms and was a senator, after achieving several milestones: he was the most voted man in the history of the country, the first to be re-elected, after a constitutional reform that he himself promoted, and the only one to win in first round in the two presidential contests, with record numbers.
But his hegemony, as well as that of his Democratic Center party, founded by himself in 2013, has been evaporating over the years. The former president went from having a popularity rating of over 70% during his term in office to 37.8% today.
The wear of uribismo is charged at the polls
For the first time since he left power in 2008, a candidate openly sponsored by Álvaro Uribe Vélez or his Democratic Center party is not in the deck of options for the first presidential round on May 29, leaving behind more than 20 years of glory.
For some analysts consulted by France 24, several factors contributed to his weakening: the investigations against him, his opposition to the peace agreement and an unpopular mandate from Iván Duque, the current ruler who arrived at the Casa de Nariño under the umbrella of the Center Democratic.
“Uribe has lost an essential battle that was to destroy the peace process, but his weakening is also due to the judicial battles he has lost,” says left-wing senator Iván Cepeda, his counterpart in an investigation for alleged witness tampering that he had former president under house arrest for several weeks in 2020.
In 2008, Uribe’s political dauphin, Juan Manuel Santos, came to power with his support, but by the time he won the Nobel Peace Prize and sought re-election in 2012, they were already rivals. Santos’ legacy was the peace agreement with the FARC guerrillas, which Uribe always opposed.
“Uribe committed his political capital in the fight against the peace agreement, which ultimately led to a somewhat weakening of his political base because even at the time of his greatest popularity, Colombians were mostly in favor of a negotiated solution to the conflict,” Yann added. Basset.
The descending unpopularity of “uribismo”, as the movement that sympathizes with it is known, helped by the questionable management of Iván Duque, caused the Democratic Center to lose a good number of seats in the legislative elections on March 13, a defeat inversely proportional to the historical advance of the left movement.
Although “uribismo” has not completely disappeared, that Álvaro Uribe does not have his own candidate and that one of his political heirs is not among the two great sides of the presidential contest, these are facts that speak eloquently of the bad timing for which what is considered the most influential politician in recent Colombian history is passing by.
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