Colombia goes to the polls in the first post-pandemic elections, after the social mobilizations that drew attention to the need for an institutional framework that closes social gaps and recognizes the profound transformations of current societies. They will take place after the elections in Peru and Chile, with the triumphs of the left of Pedro Castillo and Gabriel Boric, respectively, and without Trump in power.
When so much has happened, a citizenry with greater clarity would be expected to elect a new Congress that is sustained as a true counterweight to any government that results from the presidential elections, which will be held in a first round in May and a second in June.
They are different elections. The weakening of the political parties deepened and although the usual ones will be on the ballot, there will be other movements that recovered their legal status such as the New Liberalism, National Salvation, Green Oxygen, the Communist Party, among others. It is a scenario of a greater openness of the electoral system that today can be read as atomization, but allows even broader lists of coalitions in the ideological and programmatic.
The peace seats will be elected for the first time, 16, which are transitory constituencies that cover 167 municipalities that have not had representation in the legislature, the poorest and most marginalized. Despite the fact that they have faced financing problems that the State had to guarantee them and the intention of the traditional parties to co-opt the spaces that the peace agreement with the former FARC guaranteed them, in addition to violence against their candidates, the process continues. .
We will launch the figure known as primaries, with three consultations from the right, left and center, from which it is expected that three candidates will come out to compete in the first round with those who already registered outside the consultations, such as Oscar Iván Zuluaga from the Center Democratic, Rodolfo Hernández and Ingrid Betancourt. And the possibility of Germán Vargas Lleras, who recently launched an advertising campaign that could be interpreted as support for the lists of his party, Cambio Radical, or as a kind of chronicle announced by the personalism that characterizes the piece scheduled on television.
In the Hope Center Coalition, the polls favor Sergio Fajardo, Alejandro Gaviria and Juan Manuel Galán; The Team for Colombia would pick up the right-wing vote due to the lack of enthusiasm that the Uribe candidate Óscar Iván Zuluaga has aroused, to the point that his party will not punish its members who vote in that consultation. The favorability for now rewards Federico Gutiérrez, Alex Char and David Barguil. And in the Historical Pact the election of Gustavo Petro is sung. Relevant figures such as Francia Márquez do not manage to score sufficiently, although a vote that allows him to stand out in other dignities would be desirable.
The new conformation of the Congress will mark the banner of what could be the presidential elections. As in the great majority of the countries of America, it is not expected to achieve a majority Congress for any of the parties or movements and there are even bets that some will not reach the 3% threshold to survive.
The great voters no longer compete, 48 candidates do not appear, among whom are former president Álvaro Uribe Ernesto Macías, Antanas Mockus, Juanita Gubertus, Jorge Enrique Robledo, David Barguil and Roy Barriers.
The country is risking its institutional framework in this congressional election, the number of candidates and their dispersion has not been easy for the voter to make a decision on proposals regarding issues that are necessary for the country such as the economic model, going through the policy of taxes, subsidies, basic income, mining-energy dependency or the rights achieved and the repeated need for justice, pension and labor reform.
In the coalitions, ideological positions and the so-called win bias are taking precedence, which favors those who do better in the polls or to contain those who generate fear. What is certain is that we arrived at the elections with a right weakened even more by the low popularity ratings of President Iván Duque below 20%, and the conflicts within his party, totally divided, a left strengthened in the name of Gustavo Petro and a center that continues to seek its north in a country that declares itself to be 60% center but that does not privilege with its vote the candidates who really represent it.
There are 15 candidates in the three coalitions, a unique opportunity with several of them, suitable people, who well deserve that in this election we vote conscientiously and reward what we claim: honesty and responsibility and vision of a reconciled country.
We have a great challenge in the few days before that Sunday the 13th where we will see how much we have changed in these four years. A lot of pedagogy is required to choose between open lists with the candidate’s number memorized and thoroughly studied and closed lists that seem better, but where the undesirables sometimes camouflage.
For now, we have reached a process that will always be the opportunity that democracy gives nations to express themselves freely. Hopefully those who have been in charge of trafficking the vote, and then betraying the voters, do not succeed. The future of the country in which you want to live depends on you, a citizen.
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