The Colombian right is heading to the elections on March 13 with several options, from the Equipo por Colombia coalition, to candidates such as Uribista Óscar Iván Zuluaga, who competes with the Democratic Center. However, despite the hegemony that the right has had for decades in the country, this is the year in which it has the worst projections for the elections, with former President Álvaro Uribe absent.
With the elections just around the corner, Colombia could be facing the possibility of a fully leftist government. And it is that until now, and after five consecutive periods of right-wing governance, it has never had it.
The “overexposure” of the security discourse above any other social or political aspect has negatively affected the Colombian right, according to some experts. A wear that is accused for the first time in twenty years in the country.
“The fall of the right is fundamentally explained by the collapse of Uribismo. By the disappearance of Álvaro Uribe as a source of governability (….) And by the failure of the Government to maintain the old banner of security; without creating new banners All in a context of disappearance of the FARC, whose fight was the raison d’être of Uribismo,” says Álvaro Farero, political analyst and columnist.
During the most intense years of the armed conflict in the current century – from 2000 to 2002 – Álvaro Uribe arrived with a promise that would remain in the minds of many Colombians: get rid of the guerrillas with a heavy hand and return sovereignty to the people. There were not a few who bought that speech in a country increasingly besieged by violence.
“Álvaro Uribe represented a firm hand, represented authority at a time when Andrés Pastrana -his predecessor- weakened the rule of law and showed weakness in the face of a failed peace process,” says Carlos Andrés Arias, a professor of political communication at the Externado University of Colombia and manager of the public communication consultancy Strategy and Power.
Now the polls are not favorable to the options of the right, despite being merely projections of what could happen on March 13 -legislative elections- and, later, on May 19 with the first presidential round. From the Equipo por Colombia coalition, whose main candidate, Federico Gutiérrez, only has 15% favorability, to other right-wing politicians such as Óscar Iván Zuluaga -Uribismo’s main bet-, who only gets between 12% and 15 % support.
Despite not enjoying good electoral projections, the right has a wide range of options, far from being atomized around Uribism. And it still has a lot of support in much of the country, in areas far from urban centers, although not with its traditional hegemony. At the moment, the polls give an unequivocal lead to the Historical Pact, a leftist coalition.
However, experts such as Carlos Andrés Arias assure that this is a “historic voting intention” and it remains to be seen what really happens in the 2022 elections.
The figure and triumph of Álvaro Uribe
The figure of Uribe and the situation of Uribismo defy the polls. But despite being one of the most popular politicians in the country’s history, having his party in the Executive and enjoying a majority in the Senate, the politician is losing strength.
Without a representative at the head and with his legacy marred by networks such as the cases of the so-called ‘false positives’ (thousands of extrajudicial executions committed during his leadership) or the criminal proceedings filed against him – in which he was accused of buying witnesses – This is the first date at the polls in which Uribe is not at the center of the debate since he left the Presidency.
“The discourse of democratic security generated public policies that in one way or another, in an unwise way and even in violation of the law, achieved some kind of impact,” Arias maintains about Uribe.
In fact, Uribe closed 2021 with his lowest favorability rate in a quarter of a century. According to Invamerthe former president barely has 19% support in his January poll, far from the 85% he enjoyed in July 2008.
Now, with what political scientists call a “mutation to a more progressive and peace-prone discourse,” there is less and less room for Uribe’s Democratic Center. So much so that the political formation was not invited to the right-wing coalition, Equipo por Colombia.
The parties that make up the coalition announced it three days before the Democratic Center’s candidate was announced, and in their statement, they neither invited him nor mentioned him. An uncomfortable silence for his closest friends but that some figures of the movement assure is not a estrangement. Nor is an alliance of right-wing forces ruled out in the second round.
During this campaign, Uribe himself has kept a low profile, far from being at the center of debates and setting the political agenda. Something that does not mean that he is far from the contest.
With Uribismo much more limited, some experts believe that the former president’s strategy consists of having a letter in various electoral positions. Outside the pacts, there is Óscar Iván Zuluaga for the Democratic Center and other extreme right options, such as Senator María Fernanda Cabal (also from the Democratic Center), who generates division within Uribe itself.
The consequences of the Government of Iván Duque
President Iván Duque, Uribe’s political dauphin, does not enjoy high popularity either. His government is accused of ignoring the country’s biggest problems, such as structural flaws in the implementation of the Peace Agreement with the FARC signed by the previous Executive, or of having allowed the resurgence of armed groups and the assassination of hundreds of social leaders. , among other.
“The argument is that whatever Uribe-Duque-Centro Democrático is marks the voter’s hatred at levels similar to (what exists in other sectors of society against the leftist politician Gustavo) Petro,” assured Carlos Suárez to the Colombian media ‘Silla Vacía’.
Duque’s unpopularity reached unsuspected heights with 72% rejection according to the latest Invamer survey. And neither positive figures in the management of the pandemic -with high vaccination rates and drastic measures against the spread of the virus- nor the recovery of the economy have managed to distance him from the bad image with which he leaves the Executive. Image that, in turn, leaves Uribismo as a legacy.
“The great maker of the decline of the right in Colombia is not the left; not even social discontent, but rather it is the product of misrule and of an Executive that was never prepared to assume the historic moment of peace negotiation,” he points out. Carlos Arias on Duque’s mandate.
The surveys, regarding Duque, also indicate that, within this great unpopularity, those who rated him worst were Colombians with high incomes, who were his main allies during the 2018 elections. With more than 73% disapproval among citizens of Bogotá of higher strata, an index that shows that the preferences of the electorate -even of an upper class historically favorable to Uribismo- have changed.
An optimistic right despite the bad forecasts
The Colombian right maintains that it can win the 2022 elections. And, although it is true that in the 2018 elections it had better projections than now, it won without having guaranteed support.
President Duque himself has been confident in this regard, although he has already launched accusations about possible “hackers” interfering in the elections, something reminiscent of words used by the former president of the United States, Donald Trump, who denied the victory of his rival, Joe Biden, in the 2020 elections.
“We have to be able to protect our democracy from foreign influence or interference. From those who seek to manipulate algorithms or those who seek to generate hatred and fracture,” the Colombian president told the European Parliament in mid-February.
In the context of the elections, political analysts maintain that if the right wing goes into a first or second round weakened, its rival would benefit -whether from the left or from the center- in the final vote.
“The right-wing candidates have many difficulties because that sector accumulates the discredit of Iván Duque, the collapse of Uribism, and the discredit of clientelism. They are the contender that Gustavo Petro prefers in the second round because he considers them the easiest to defeat. It would be enough for him qualify them as ‘another Duke’, Forero points out in this regard.
All at the gates of elections that will define who takes the reins of Colombia in the next four years.
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