Colombia's Nixon?

He even looks a bit like Nixon:Conservative presidential candidate Oscar Iván Zuluaga.

He worked with a shadowy hacker to play dirty tricks on political opponents. He apparently tried to sabotage the peace talks going on in Havana, Cuba. And he lied about it, repeatedly and in different ways.

Yet this man, Centro Democratico presidential candidate Óscar Iván Zuluaga, still believes himself qualified to be president.

Zuluaga, a relative unknown ex-treasury minister with little charisma, had shown surprising strength in recent polls, but still didn't stand much chance of defeating Pres. Santos if both made it to the second round of presidential elections. With the scandal generated by videos showing him scheming with a now-imprisoned computer hacker, Zuluaga might not make it into the second round - or there might be no second round at all if his supporters abandon him for Santos.

We should be grateful to the Spanish computer geek who recorded and leaked the now-infamous meeting. If not for him, Zuluaga might possibly have become president, setting Colombia up for years of illegal government monitoring, dirty politics and scandals which would have made the huge scandals during the administration of Pres. Alvaro Uribe, Zuluaga's political mentor, look trifling.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours