Mockus's March for Life

March for Life volunteers recently in Bogotá's Parque Nacional.

Antanas Mockus lobbies for his March for Life.

Antanas Mockus, the widely-admired ex-mayor of Bogotá, is organizing a 'March for Life' in Bogotá for Sunday, March 8.

What's there to criticize about that?

Plenty, it turns out, from the perspective of ex-President Alvaro Uribe.

Last month, now-Senator Uribe made known to the world that Mockus's foundation 'Visionarios por March for Life, therefore, was a thinly disguised march in favor of those peace talks.
Colombia' had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracts from the government. That meant, Uribe insinuated, that Mockus was in cahoots with Pres. Santos - Uribe's political enemy - in support of the FARC-government peace talks going on in Havana, Cuba.

'They seem to be visionaries, but for the money, someone wrote on Twitter feed.

Uribe is a furious critic of the talks, which he charges will mean impunity for guerrilla leaders.

But what should it matter whether a man organizing a march for life actually supports a peace process? Mockus has never hidden his support for the negotiations, which appear on track to end Colombia's 50-year-old civil conflict.

And Mockus is suffering from Parkinson's disease, which could cut his life short. It would make no sense for him to throw his reputation for honesty and uncorruptibility into the trash for the sake of a single contract.

If you can, join Mockus's March for Life. It can only help.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Everbody Against Peñalosa?

Enrique Peñalosa

Petro,
Mockus
and Parody -
all for one
& one for all?

With the alliance of candidates Antanas Mockus and Gina Parody into a single campaign headed by Parody, the campaign for mayor consolidated into a three-person race, led by Gustavo Petro and Enrique Peñalosa, with Parody close behind.

The Mockus-Parody union struck me as a bit strange. Mockus is a leftist who used public spirit to improve Bogotanos' behavior, while Parody's advisors include New York's law-and-order Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Perhaps not surprisingly, the alliance didn't produce the hoped for results. Mockus's supporters went to all three leading candidates, leaving Parody in third place with 14% support in one poll. The biggest beneficiaries may have been Petro, who now has about 20% support, and the 'I don't knows' with 14%.

Now, El Tiempo reports that Conservative candidate Dionisio Araujo is also jumping onto Parody's campaign and that Petro and Parody may even team up. That would likely make their combined ticket unstoppable.

Peñalosa's solitude is surprising for a man whose mayoral term is generally seen as successful: he reclaimed public spaces, expanded the bike lanes system and started the express bus network, which successive mayors have expanded. But Peñalosa has a reputation as haughty and aloof, so it may be a personality issue as much as anything. But if he wins, perhaps that'll mean that he won't be beholden to anybody.

It's refreshing, at least, that all the leading players are seen as uncorrupt and well-intended. The campaign so far has been generally positive and carried out on a high level, focusing on real issues, such as crime, transit and quality of life.

With Bogotá sunk into chaos, congested traffic and lots of concerns about crime, the city needs a leader who can put it back on a positive track. Is that person Parody, who is young and unproven? Is it Petro, the one-time M-19 guerrilla? Or is it Peñalosa, whose previous administration earned him high approval ratings and put the city in order?

You can guess my opinion, and it's not just because Peñalosa (as well as Mockus) has rented bicycles from Bogotá Bike Tours.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Points for Mockus!

Antanas Mockus launches his campaign yesterday. (Photo: El Tiempo)

Antanas Mockus formally launched his campaign yesterday by proposing to...CHARGE MOTORISTS FOR DRIVING!

Mockus shows again his independence. While other candidates make populist proposals, such as eliminating the Pico y Placa policy - which would increase traffic congestion, at least in the short term - or promise a subway and freeway network, which would bleed the city's budget dry and not happen for many years, leave it to Mockus is proposing to make drivers pay.

Of course, Mockus's proposed congestion charge is the sanest, most effective and sustainable way to resolve Bogotá's tremendous traffic jams while at the same time financing public transit. Cities including Singapore, London and Stockholm use such charges.

Time is money: in central Bogota,
drivers pay for congestion in lost time.

Mockus said he'd charge private cars for using congested streets in central Bogotá. It's an idea certain to meet opposition from drivers - even tho they (and everybody else) are already paying the charge, in lost time, extra fuel costs and increased pollution.

It also makes for social justice: while only a small minority of Bogotanos have private cars, private cars occupy 80% of road space, making everybody wait in traffic jams.

Mockus also promised to build cable cars lines to hillside neighborhoods and to keep expanding the Transmilenio express-bus system. All of these are sensible proposals sustainable in the long term. But with other candidates rushing to promise the impossible, will voters listen to candidates like Mockus and Enrique Peñalosa, whose plans are more modest, but might actually get done? 

Perhaps Bogotanos learned their lesson from current suspended Mayor Samuel Moreno, whose campaign promises included a subway and new Transmilenio lines, but has delivered only a single expensive bridge overpass (which hasn't solved the traffic jams) and lots of corruption.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Mockus Leaps in!

Antanas Mockus wants to be mayor again. 

Antanas Mockus will join the campaign for mayor of Bogotá, El Tiempo reports.

Mockus has already been mayor of Bogotá twice before, from 1995-8 and 2001-3, and previously rector of the National University, Colombia's largest public university.

Mockus will be a strong candidate, because he's very well known here and has a positive, clean image. In his previous mayorships he did lots to expand public services and improve public spirit, for instance hiring hundreds of mimes to encourage drivers to respect traffic laws.

Mockus has run for president three times, the last in 2010, when he was the Green Party candidate and got plastered by conservative Juan Manuel Santos. Colombians supported Santos, who had been defense minister, in great part because they sought a strong hand to battle leftist guerrillas. Mockus, in contrast, was seen as a sort of eccentric intellectual. That's understandable: the man got married on an elephant in a circus and first caught the public eye by mooning an audience while university rector. Many Bogotanos may also question Mockus's dedication to the city  - he left both mayorships early, the first time to run for president and the second to take a year's speaking sabbatical.

As presidential candidate, Mockus was also vague about his goals, promising mostly 'change.' Hopefully, as mayoral candidate, he'll tell us his positions on specifics such as the city's transit mess, crime and other issues.

But Bogotanos might just go for a man they hope will raise the spirit of a city in something of a malaise due to high crime rates, a corruption scandal involving the current mayor, and seemingly interminable public works projects.

Enrique Peñalosa,
leading the race. 

On the other hand, voters may still look for a strong hand, such as Enrique Peñalosa, who was mayor from 1998 to 2001 and is known for creating the city's express bus system, called Transmilenio.

Because Mockus helped found the Partido Verde (the Green Party), he's likely to take votes from  Peñalosa, the Partido Verde's candidate, as well as from Polo Democratico candidate Gustavo Petro, since Mockus, like Petro, appeals to young idealists.

An August 1 poll by CM& Television put Peñalosa in the lead with 29% and Petro second with 20%. But a Mockus candidacy would garner 13% support, according to the poll, taking 4% percentage points from each of the leaders. Mockus' candidacy probably ends any possibility for a victory by Petro, who depended on cornering the leftist vote, while center voters splintered their support. The other three candidates are young and less well known, likely making this a two-man race between Mockus and Peñalosa.

Mockus' candidacy, incidentally, also shows the arbitrariness of Colombia's political party labels. Mockus is going to run as candidate of the Independent Social Alliance party, which until recently was called the Indigenous Social Alliance. Mockus is the son of immigrants from Lithuania. For his part, Peñalosa's Green Party doesn't have many environmental planks in its platform and is allied with conservative Pres. Juan Manuel Santos and ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe.

I hope Peñalosa wins, to put the city in order on issues like transit, public space and rational growth policies. But my money's on Mockus, because of his charisma and positive image.

Mockus may also get the sympathy vote: he's been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, altho doctors say it won't affect his intellectual ability for years yet. Still, his political career is limited.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Campaign Update

So, one by one, Colombia's center and center-right parties have been climbing onto Santos' ship. Does the Liberal Party (or at least the bulk of it), historically the rival and opponent of the Conservative Party, really support the principles of a candidate who is apparently further right than the Conservatives?

Not likely.

Rather, the Liberals and everyone else want to be on the winner's side.

That's understandable for parties in decadence, but it's also sad.

As for the candidates, Mockus has finally begun beating on the ethics drum. Unfortunately, after ignoring years of falsos positivos, chuzadas and innumerable other scandals, it's clear that Colombians are more interested in security than human rights.

This blog written by Mike Ceaser, of Bogota Bike Tours

Colombia's Candidates

With the election in the final stretch (first round voting is Sunday, the 30th), it looks clear that there'll be a second round between Juan Manuel Santos and Antanas Mockus. For those who don't follow Colombian politics, Santos was Pres. Alvaro Uribe's defense minister and once considered a shoo-in to be the next pres. But Mockus, an ex-Bogotá mayor, has come from nowhere to make the election a real race.

Guys like these call Mockus just too wierd to vote for. The guy got married on an elephant, after all.

Santos is the conservative, who will most likely continue Uribe's aggressive war against the guerrillas and neoliberal economics.

Mockus, popular among the young, urban and educated, was a centrist mayor, but many of his policies on a national level are question marks. He has said, however, that he'll continue many of Uribe's policies, except for trying to normalize relations with Venezuela. Mockus is considered intelligent and not corrupt, but he's eccentric.

In recent days, Mockus has, courageously, said that he'll raise taxes on the wealthy if elected - something else which confirms him as the 'Colombian Obama.' Santos rejected that - even though his political patron Uribe has done exactly that.

Mockus also said that he'll normalize relations with Chavez's Venezuela. The leftist Chavez has made many threats against Colombia, even talking war. There's also lots of evidence that Chavez has supported Colombia's leftist guerrillas.

Unfortunately, the environment has received little attention in this campaign, despite Colombia's huge environmental problems, including deforestation and urban air pollution. In one debate, the candidates did discuss the issue of drug-field fumigation, which causes huge environmental impacts by driving campesinos to chop down forest for drug crops. Several of the candidates did criticize the policy - but (from my reading) none cited environmental reasons. And, Mockus being the Green Party candidate, that's a real disappointment. He took a vague stand on fumigation - to continue, but study it. Santos vowed to continue the policy. Only some of the leftist candidates, who have no chance, said they'd change the policy. Perhaps more emphasis on relieving poverty will mean that fewer campesinos will turn to planting drug crops.

Colombia's tremendous human rights crisis - which seem to be getting worse, even as the economy grows and the country attracts more tourists - haven't gotten a whole lot of attention. In the final debate, Petro said the government needs to support the nation's displaced, but Santos pointed out that this is financially impossible.

More on Mockus

I looked over the 'Green party's' 'green' agenda. There's a single bullet point, out of 15, and a vague one at that. Which is a lot less than George W. Bush and Exxon promise for the planet.

So, give them credit for not making wild promises. But let's be clear that the green in the party is a color only.

The guy at Caracas Chronicles suggests that the recent polls which place Mockus substantially ahead undercount the rural population. That might be true, since these folks are much less likely to have telephones. And it's also true that rural folks are less likely to be impressed by a guy who dropped his pants in front of his class and dressed up as Superman - or even to have heard of Mockus. Rural people are also more likely to be grateful to Santos for driving the guerrillas away from their lands.

All in all, the election is still up for grabs.

Who's better for the country is another issue entirely. Santos has accomplished a lot as defense minister by freeing great sections of the country from the persecution by the guerrillas. But the guerrillas have not gone away, in part because they've got huge incomes from drugs and extortion, combined with the fact that Colombia's poverty rate is still a terribly high 43 percent overall and 61 percent in the countryside. And 23 percent of Colombians are indigent. That makes becoming a guerrilla (or a paramilitary or a plain-old narco) a tremendous temptation for a poor kid. (I've spoken to enough ex-guerrillas and ex-kidnappees to know that they don't sign up because they read Das Kapital and decided to overthrow capitalism.) Presumably, Mockus would invest more in social causes, and this could mean fewer kids joining the guerrillas out of desperation.

Or, maybe Santos would hike investments in education, health and other social causes. After all, Nixon got us out of Vietnam and into China.

Speaking of the guerrillas, the other day the FARC issued a statement denouncing the government for human rights violations. And there are many government scandals, the most notorious being the 'false positives' - cases in which poor young men have been kidnapped, murdered and dressed up as guerrillas, apparently by military units trying to get credit for extra kills. It's a terrible, horrific thing, and a real stain on the nation and on presidential candidate Santos, under whose watch these killings took place. But the guerrillas are way behind the curve on this one - Colombia's legal system has been investigating these rights violations for years, and military officials are in prison for it. More than that, the guerrillas have no moral standing for making such denouncements, since murdering civilians is what they do. And no guerrilla court holds them accountable for their innumerable crimes.

This blog written by Mike Ceaser of Bogotá Bike Tours