The Decadence of the Liberal Party

Liberal candidate Humberto
de la Calle: A good man,
but a bad campaigner.

During much of Colombia's history, the Partido Liberal was one of two dominant forces - along with the Partido Conservador - in Colombian politics. The Liberals produced some 30 presidents and helped introduce peace treaties with guerrilla groups, the secularization of the country and expanded rights for women and minorities.

The Liberals dominated the presidency after the end of Frente Nacional in 1974, electing 5 of the country's 7 presidents.

However, the presidency of Ernesto Samper (1994-8), whose campaign was financed by drug cartels, tainted the party (and by the same token, his succesor Conservative Andrés Pastrana's failed peace talks with the FARC guerrillas threw the Conservatives into disrepute). The 2002 election of Pres. Alvaro Uribe, who started his political career as a Liberal, moved far to the right, and won the presidency as an independent, drained both major traditional parties of relevance.

The Liberals' lack of ideological consistency may also weaken it. The party houses both far-leftists
such as e-senator Piedad Cordoba, who evidently sympathizes with both the FARC guerrillas and the government of Venezuela, and conservative evangelicals.

In this latest presidential campaign the Liberals made the mistake of choosing as their standard bearer Humberto De La Calle, who led the government negotiating team in peace talks with the FARC guerrillas. But De La Calle's candidacy never took off, receiving only 2% of the vote. And neither did the Liberals enter into a coalition with the only viable centrist candidate, ex-Medellin Mayor Sergio Fajardo.

The Liberal Party endorses Ivan Duque, right-wing opponent of the peace deal.

Finally, after choosing a pro-peace candidate in the first round, in the presidential campaign's second round the Liberals endorsed Ivan Duque, the political heir of ex-President Alvaro Uribe, furious critic of the peace negotiations. A voter could be forgiven for wondering what the Liberals stand for -if anything.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

It (Should Be) Fajardo

Colombia's next president?
Unfortunately, probably not.

Vote for Fajardo for president on the27th!

Sergio Fajardo wasn't perfect as mayor Medellin: Some projects were executed poorly, and he ran over budget. But Fajardo also accomplished things, and Medellin has continued its evolution from Narco City to tourist destination and retirement haven. In fact, the Washington Post just listed Medellin as one of the globe's 'attrative cities.' Not bad for a city which just a few decades ago was ruled by vicious drug cartels. Bogotá was not on the post's list.

Fajardo is a political centrist. Unfortunately, in tomorrow's first round of presidential voting, the two leading candidates are the far-left Gustavo Petro and the right-wing Ivan Duqué.

Petro's mayoralty of Bogotá was marked by investment for poor people, but also monumental mishandling of public services. Exhibition No. 1 was his decision to transfer the garbage collection contract to the city's water company, which didn't even own garbage trucks. For weeks, garbage piled up on sidewalks and streetcorners.

Petro got temporarily removed from office for that travesty. I also witnessed many examples of corruption and/or incompetence during Petro's time as Bogotá mayor. For example, the city installed racks for hundreds bikes in places where nobody ever wants to park a bike. And Petro issued a contract for a public bicycles program which was illogical, unrealistic economically and evidently rife with corruption. The much-needed project has as yet to start.

De la Calle seems like a good guy, and we all should be grateful to him for making the peace deal with the FARC, as imperfect as it is, a reality. But negotiating a peace deal is far from being the top executive of Colombia. It's too long a leap from peace negotiator to president. De la Calle is not ready.

Vargas Lleras got things done, in particular on infrastructure. But Vargas Lleras' eocnomic and social philosophies are too conservarive for my taste.

Unfortunately, none of the three centrist candidates seems to have enough support to make people he has the potential to pass into the second round of voting. So, Duque and Petro will likely pass to the second round of voting.

If Ivan Duque wins, he'll set Colombia backward decades on social issues such as minority rights. He'll also do his best to sabotage the peace agreement with the FARC, causing the armed conflict to resurge.

Also, many believe that Duque, a young guy, would just be a puppet of ex-president Alvaro Uribe, Duque's political sponsor. And Uribe has been credibly linked to right wing death squads, also called paramilitaries. That would give Duque a huge burden.

Petro, on the other hand, has lots of good ideas - which however are completely impractical and undoable, such as trading the oil economy for avocado growing.

Wish it were true!


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

With Supporters Like This Guy...

Jhon Jairo Velasquez, one-time cartel assassin
turned right-wing political campaigner.

Jhon Jairo Velásquez, known as Popeye, was probably Pablo Escobar's top assassin, who confessed to personally murdering some 250 people - so he's not the sort of guy whose endorsement most political candidates want.

But Popeye, who was released in August 2014 after 23 years in prison, has gone full throttle in favor of right-wing presidential candidate Iván Duque in the voting to be held on Sunday.

Or, rather than supporting Duque, Popeye has been lashing out against Gustavo Petro, the leftist candidate, ex-Bogotá mayor and ex-M19 guerrilla leader, who has the second largest support in most polls.

'We will combat the Petro collectives with everything,' Popeye tweeted last week. 'Evil rats, Petristas communist ones; Associates of the FARC (guerrillas), Nicolas Maduro and (Colombian president) Juan Manuel Santos.

'I can be killed by a bullet,but not by fear,' Popeye added.

Why a one-time assassin for a narcotics kingpin, who still hangs out with narcos, would campaign for a law-and-order candidate is a mystery. After all, Escobar's Medellin cartel fought bloody battles against the police and military.

Or, for those who believe in conspiracies, perhaps there's more here than meets the eyes. Is Popeye actually in the pay of another candidate, such as Petro himself, who wants Popeye to sully Duque's name by associating with him?

The Medellin Cartel did sometimes ally itself with right-wing paramilitaries, so perhaps popeye has some lingering loyalties. Or perhaps Popeye, who reportedly now leads tours in Medellin, genuinely hates left-wing politicians such as Gustavo Petro, the ex-mayor of Bogotá and leader of the M-19 guerrillas who is one of the leading candidates for president. Popeye certainly spends lots of ink denouncing communism.

In recent tweets, Popeye sounded like he was preparing a civil war, discussing storing arms and weapons in people's houses. But Popeye's tweets really triggered alarms when he promised that 'My rifle will do the talking'. His critics have asked prosecutors to investigate whether that constitutes an illegal threat.

Like Escobar's son Juan Pablo, who allegedly has continued making drug money deals from his home in Argentina, Popeye can't seem to leave his vicious Medellin Cartel habits behind.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Petro's Empty Bike Racks

On Plaza San Victorino, one of Petro's bike racks finds a user.

This small bike rack has been sitting nearly empty for years.
What made the Petro administration conclude that
the plaza needed a hundred more bike parking spaces?

It's a strange political circumstance: Gustavo Petro, whose term as mayor of Bogotá is most remembered for trash-filled sidewalks and his resulting temporary ouster, is now a leading candidate for president.

Sure, Petro did do some good things: He finally got rid of the cart-pulling horses called zorros, which

Another Petro bike rack finds users!

often suffered beatings and hunger. And he stopped bullfights from being held, though they returned this year. And those aren't exactly urban transformations. Petro's administration also did pour money into services such as soup kitchens in poor neighborhoods - but then nearly every mayor does that.

Meanwhile, Bogotá's trashy sidewalks, air pollution and chaotic traffic, amongst other urban ills, all continued. A lot of us had hoped that an ex-guerrilla leader would find some daring, innovative solutions to those problems.

But one thing which even Petro's enemies agree about is that he's not corrupt. But while that may be true personally, I found evidence on Plaza San Victorino that corruption existed around Mayor Petro.

A lonely bicycle in a rack built for two dozen of them.

As many Bogotá residents know, San Victorino is not a safe place to leave your bike locked-up. It's located only a few blocks from the one-time drug-and-crime den called El Bronx, and it's still roamed by drug addicts and thieves who'll strip parts from your bike if not steal the whole thing.

All of which makes San Victorino an inadvisable place to park a bike. That, however, didn't stop the Petro administration, or one of its contractors, from installing racks there for some 200 bikes. Naturally, they are almost completely empty all of the time. But somebody earned a bundle of money by installing them.

Alongside Calle 26, you'll also find Petro-era wooden flooring as well as more bike racks, which

What does an empty bike rack say about Petro's governance?

were never used. (Actually, the unused racks were stolen.)

I don't know much about Petro's public works. But the little glimpse I've seen of them here in the center makes me wonder how many of Petro's buddies got rich by misusing public funds during his presidency.

Petro's administration did contribute to cycling by adding bike lanes, including the one alongside the Parkway in Teusaquillo. However, he could have supported cycling a lot more by placing these racks someplace where cyclists would actually use them.

A pretty low bar. 'You can say whatever you want against him, but you can never say that he stole public resources from the city.' Well, perhaps. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Santos's Campaign Secret: La Selección?

Pres. Santos and supporters celebrate his reelection victory. (Photo: El Tiempo)

Pres. Santos, it seems to me, ran a remarkably ineffective reelection campaign, despite impressive achievements to run on: The economy is growing at an almost 5% annually, unemployment is dropping, inflation is low, Santos has killed several important guerrilla leaders and the government-FARC peace negotiations are progressing.

Colombia beat Greece 3-0 on Saturday.

Nevertheless, just ten days ago some polls had Santos trailing right-wing candidate Oscár Iván Zuluaga - who until recently was almost unknown to Colombians - by as much as 10% in voters' intentions.

And then, today, Santos won reelection with a comfortable 6% margin.

What changed things? It wasn't the debates, in which Santos seemed to flail and Zuluaga made his arguments with confidence.

Members of Colombia's selección celebrating yesterday.
Pres. Santos had good reason to celebrate, too.

Perhaps continued progress in the peace negotiations helped, as did vigorous support from left-wing political leaders.

But a significant factor may have been Colombia's previous day's victory in the World Cup.

Before you shake your head, read this 2010 study 'Irrelevant events affect voters' evaluations of government performance,' which found that in United States elections, a victory by the local college (American) football team gave an incumbent politician an average 1.61% vote increase. The connection isn't rational, of course. But when a voter feels that things are going well generally, he or she can subconsciously transfer that sentiment to the local incumbent.

'Polls predict a Zuluaga victory in Colombia.'

'Big poll: Zuluaga 49% Santos 41%.'

'Santos 38%, Zuluaga 37%. 'The competition is head-to-head.'

Take that 1.6% number, add in the facts that this was Colombia's first World Cup appearance since 1998 and that the national team seems to represent Colombian patriotism, and it seems to me Santos' World Cup boost might have been 2 or 3%. In addition, a more enthusiastic public would tend to turn out to vote in higher numbers, which generally favors the more leftist candidate.

Arguing against a large football influence is the match's closeness to election date - by the day before the vote, most people have already made up their minds.

Still, it's hard to imagine that Colombia's resounding victory over Greece didn't make a difference of at least a point or two. Such a shift of votes from Zuluaga to Santos would at least have changed the election results from a tiny Santos victory to the minor mandate which he received.

Santos voters? Workers in Paloquemao market celebrate Colombia's World Cup victory.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Santos' Crazy Campaign Coalition

There's the ex-guerrilla whom Santos ousted from City Hall (and then put back in).

There's the eccentric politician whom Santos trounced in the 2010 presidential run-off.

And there's the leader of the far-left political party who were fierce opponents of Santos' anti-guerrilla war.

'Just for peace.' Gustavo Petro urges a vote for Santos.

Those are the unlikely leaders of the leftist political coalition campaigning for four more years for Pres. Santos. You can be sure that none of them are true-blue Santistas. Rather, they're pulling for Santos because they dread even more a far-right, warmongering Zuluaga presidency.

Bogotá Mayor Gustavo Petro certainly didn't imagine himself endorsing the president for reelection a few months ago when Santos was signing papers removing Petro from office.

Green Party leader Antanas Mockus didn't likely see himself campaigning for Santos and peace four years ago when Santos whalloped him in the second round presidential election by vowing to destroy the guerrillas militarily.

And I'm sure that Polo Democratico candidate Clara Lopez would have called a liar anybody who suggested that one day she would campaign for Santos, who was minister of defense under militaristic president Alvaro Uribe.

None of those political leaders likely support other Santos administration policies, such as his endorsement of large scale mining as a 'locomotive' of Colombia's economy.

The Polo Democratico's Clara Lopez says she
wants peace and more Pres. Santos.

For Santos, the leftists' embrace creates a delicate political dance. Santos can't realistically hope to get more than 50% of the vote without a big part of the Polo Democratico's 15% first round vote and the Partido Verde's 8%, as well as some of the leftists who abstained in the first round. But Santos also needs badly a significant slice of the center-right Conservative Party vote. Can the president conceivably appeal to such a disparate range of voters?

The latest poll, which showed Santos a few percentage points ahead of Zuluaga, suggests that Santos' coalition strategy is working.

But if Santos wins reelection, what will this far-left support mean for his policies?

Perhaps there's a clue in Polo Democratico candidate Clara Lopez's commercial for Santos. Lopez

'With Santos peace is serious,'
says Green Party leader Antanas Mockus 

focuses on 'peace', but also talks about 'free education at all levels.' In a second term, would Santos feel obliged to repay her support by offering free college education to everybody - even the rich?

But the three new Santos allies' main focus is on peace. The Colombian government and FARC guerrillas are holding peace negotiations in Havana, Cuba. Those talks have advanced farther than had any previous government negotiations with Colombia's largest guerrilla group. But many Colombians believe that a Zuluaga victory would doom the talks, altho Zuluaga recently has claimed that he'd give the negotiations a chance, albeit under stricter conditions for the guerrillas. But Zuluaga's political mentor, ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe, has been a harsh critic of the peace talks.

If Santos wins thanks to the support of the pro-peace coalition, will Santos feel obliged to sign a peace deal at all costs? That would seriously weaken the government's hand in the talks.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Where Will Their Voters Go?

In the wake of Sunday's surprising victory for right-wing candidate Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, he and second-place finisher Pres. Juan Manuel Santos are scrambling to pick up the losing candidates' supporters for the second round of voting - as well as to hold onto their own supporters.

Where could those voters go?

Zuluaga 29.3%

Zuluaga's supporters seem likely to stick with their man in the second round. After all, someone who voted for a relatively unknown, extremist candidate probably did so for a reason. Even the hacker scandal doesn't appear to threaten his support.

Santos 25.6% 

Santos was undoubtedly the default choice for many, and so his voters could presumably defect if given a strong reason. On the other hand, many voters whose first choice was eliminated will prefer a known quantity to a leap into the relative unknown with a man like Zuluaga.

Martha Lucia Ramirez 15.5%

The Conservative Party's candidate is seen as closer to Zuluaga, and on election night even appeared with ex-Pres. Pastrana, who made a speech criticizing Pres. Santos. But the Conservative Party has been divided, with many of its representatives backing Santos. Ramirez's relatively strong showing might pull more supporters away from Santos. Ramirez and Zuluaga have both harshly criticized the peace negotiations going on in Havana, Cuba, perhaps making them natural allies. On the other hand, Ramirez made anti-corruption a major plank in her platform - potentially making it difficult for her to ally with the scandal-embroiled Zuluaga.

And many of Ramirez's voters likely supported her primarily out of loyalty to the Partido Conservador, one of Colombia's two traditional establishment political parties (along with the Liberales). With the Conservador label missing in the second round, will a lot of those voters stay home? And, these traditional, establishment Colombians may feel more comfortable voting for Santos, a member of one of Colombia's most important families, than a relative unknown like Zuluaga.

Santos's best strategy to capture Conservative Party voters could be to try to frame Zuluaga as a corrupt, right-wing nut - which may not be very unrealistic.

If Zuluaga can capture Ramirez's voters and hold onto his own, he'll have victory virtually sewn up.

Clara Lopez 15.2% 

If you want to bet on one thing, bet that Lopez's supporters will never vote for the right-wing Zuluaga.

Lopez represents the union of the Polo Democratico Party, which is often seen as sympathetic to the ideology of Colombia's leftist guerrillas, and the reborn Union Patriotica Party, which was linked to the FARC guerrillas in its birth during the 1980s, but was destroyed when thousands of its leaders were assassinated by right-wing groups, probably linked to the government.

While Lopez voters won't support Zuluaga, their far-left ideology and distaste for the establishment may prevent them from backing Santos, either.

With these voters, Santos gets a big boost from the ongoing peace negotiations with the FARC guerrillas. The FARC clearly want Santos reelected, which is why they signed an agreement on ending the drug trade just a week before the first-round vote.

Will the left swallow hard and support Santos, who's generally seen as a center-right politician and who led the war against the guerrillas as Pres. Alvaro Uribe's defense minister? One sign that they could was the departure of several top staffers of Bogotá Mayor Gustavo Petro - himself a one-time M19 guerrilla leader - to work on Santos's campaign.

Will Lopez herself campaign for Santos? Perhaps - if only to stop Zuluaga.

Enrique Peñalosa 8.3%

After almost pulling even with Santos in some polls early in the campaign, Green Party candidate Peñalosa, en ex-mayor of Bogotá, really tanked on election day. Nevertheless, Peñalosa's voters will be crucial on election day because they're the most up-for-grabs. 

Despite its name, the Colombian Green Party, an artificial creation, has a confused ideology (if it has any ideology at all). Peñalosa has in the past allied himself with ex-Pres. Uribe, an arch-conservative. During this campaign, he allied his party with leftist Bogotá Mayor Gustavo Petro.

Despite this ideological confusion, Peñalosa was certainly closer to Santos than Zuluaga, particularly Peñalosa's support for the government-guerrilla peace talks in Havana. 

Santos needs to court the often-difficult Peñalosa (perhaps by offering him a position as minister?), to have a chance of getting over the top. 

To cobble together the 50% of voters he needs to win, Santos must hold onto his own 25%, capture a substantial portion of Conservative voters, get most of the Polo/UP's supporters and get Peñalosa's people behind him. But even all of that might not add up to 50%.

The Abstainers 60%

A record 6 out of 10 eligible voters stayed home on election day. Those millions of potential voters probably represent more of a potential for Santos than Zuluaga, since conservatives and supporters of more extreme candidates tend to be more dedicated voters. Therefore, a much higher proportion of Zuluaga supporters than Santos supporters likely voted on Sunday. Can Santos get the barrios and university students to turn out for him?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Uribe's Magic - or Demonic - Touch

Watching the returns come in in a central Bogotá grocery.

Until recently, he was little known. And the Centro Democratico political party didn't even exist. Now, he's on the verge of becoming Colombia's next president.

Oscar Ivan Zuluaga.

Last year, ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe created the Centro Democratico party from scratch to be his vehicle for returning to power, or at least to influence. At the party's recent inaugural convention, Uribe pulled strings to get his one-time minister of finance Oscar Ivan Zuluaga nominated as the party's presidential candidate over the better known, more popular and more charismatic Francisco Santos, who'd been Uribe's vice president.

Then Zuluaga became embroiled in a spying scandal in which he appeared to lie shamelessly to his country.

Out of this formula for disaster, Uribe has produced the leading candidate to be Colombia's president for the next four years.

Pres. Juan Manuel Santos,
a sad second.

Uribe himself withstood enough scandals to sink a hundred politicians. There were his alleged links to right-wing paramilitary groups, which he continues fighting in court. There was the Falsos Positivos tragedy, in which military units murdered thousands of young men and disguised them as guerrillas in order to earn bonuses and time off. And there was the DAS spying scandal, which many observers compared to Watergate.

But none of those things dented Uribe's popularity. He had, after all, earned Colombians' gratitude by
beating back the guerrillas which had kept the nation under siege.

By the same token, Zuluaga's own ongoing scandal, in which he met with a since-imprisoned computer hacker in an apparent attempt to sabotage rival campaigns, spy on the military and interfere with the peace negotiations going on in Havana, doesn't seem to have cost him support, either.

“Voters see this as a battle between Santos and Uribe, not Santos and Zuluaga,” pollster Javier Restrepo told the Washington Post.

That makes this election a real testament to the continued popularity of Uribe, who himself was just elected senator.

I happened to be in a corner grocery store when the results came in on their television.

"We're a nation of masochists," the storekeeper said.

But a Zuluaga voter who owns a small fish restaurant expressed confidence that the scandal wouldn't hurt the candidate. Rather, the restauranter yearned for a repeat of the Uribe presidency.

"We've got to hit those guerrillas hard," he told me.

Enrique Peñalosa: Kingmaker?

But could Zuluaga conceivably militarily defeat the guerrillas, who have withstood the government for a half-century?

And Santos, who was Uribe's minister of defense, has arguably hit the guerrillas very hard, killing several of their leaders. Paradoxically, however, he doesn't seem to have gotten much public credit for that.

Santos is also carrying out peace negotiations with the FARC guerrillas, which have advanced further than any previous peace talks. Under a Zuluaga presidency, those talks would likely founder.

But Zuluaga's victory is far from sewn up.

The almost half of voters who supported one of the minor candidates will now have to choose between Santos and Zuluaga. Most of Conservative Party candidate Maria Lucia Ramirez's 15% support will likely go to Zuluaga, while the 15% of voters who backed the Polo Democratic/Union Patriotica candidate Clara Lopez will shift to Santos - if they vote at all. Key could be whether ex-Bogotá Mayor Enrique Peñalosa endorses an ex-rival, as well as whether leftist leaders actually urge their voters to back Santos (or, more accurately, to oppose Zuluaga).


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

President Zuluaga?

Presidential candidate Oscar Iván Zuluaga.
(Photo: El Tiempo)

When the newborn Centro Democratico Party selected Oscar Iván Zuluaga to be its presidential candidate, many observers called it political suicide. After all, the convention of the party, which was founded by ex-Pres. Alvaro Uribe, had passed over Uribe's vice president, Francisco Santos, who seemed to be their most popular and charismatic potential candidate (and happens to be Pres. Juan Manuel Santos's cousin). Zuluaga, an ex-treasury minister, in contrast, was seen as grey, uncharismatic and little known publicly.

Andres Sepulveda, arrested hacker
linked to Zuluaga campaign.

And in recent weeks, it seems that things should only be getting worse. Police arrested a hacker linked to the Zuluaga campaign, who allegedly spied illegally on the government-FARC guerrilla peace talks and tried to sabotage those talks. Zuluaga admitted having visited the hacker's office, but claimed that a conspiracy behind the episode was attempting to damage his image.

Meanwhile, ex-Pres. Uribe, who remains the boss and dominant figure in the Centro Democratico Party, found himself in an uncomfortable position after prosecutors cited him to back up claims he made that Pres. Santos's 2010 campaign had received a multimillion-dollar donation which might have come from drug traffickers. (At the time, Santos and Uribe were political allies.) Uribe refused to testify to the prosecutors, questioning the system's fairness - a strange position for an ex-president and senator-elect.

Yet, despite these polemics, a recent poll showed Zuluaga winning both the first-round presidential election, to be held May 25th, and also a following run-off election against Santos.

Alvaro Uribe: Help or hindrance for Zululaga?

But Zuluaga should hold off as yet on his redecorating plans for the presidential palace. Most other polls have placed Santos in the lead. And, it seems likely that as the voting nears, most supporters of also-ran candidates will shift to Santos instead of a relative unknown like Zuluaga, or the third leading candidate, one-time Bogotá Mayor Enrique Peñalosa, a chronic loser in election after election.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Mockus Phenomenon

So, I'm blogging again, for anybody who cares...

It's the presidential campaign which moved me back to the keyboard. Suddenly, what was supposed to be a routine, predictable campaign, in which popular Pres. Alvaro Uribe, after failing in his effort to run again himself, handed power over to his man, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos, has gone bonkers. An eccentric ex-mayor of Bogotá, a man of Lithuanian parentage who once interrupted a class he was teaching to drop his pants, who recently announced that he has Parkinson's and that he's an atheist, is in a dead heat with Santos, in some polls.

Antanas Mockus' campaign is like a breath of fresh air in a nation which has spent decades obsessed with the grimness of an armed conflict, narcotrafficking and bombings. For once, will Colombians choose their president based on issues like poverty and education, rather than violence? Or, should they?

Mockus is widely agreed to be honest, intelligent and innovative. His public acknowledgement of his Parkinson's was also courageous in a nation which usually seeks strong leaders.

But Mockus is the Green Party candidate. Green is great. I'm an environmentalist. But, sadly, environmentalism may not be Colombia's first priority as a weakened by still vicious guerrilla still claws at its society. And, for that matter, what about Mockus' platform is really green? He didn't even show up for the one debate held on environmental issues and then issued a vacous statement.

I dunno. Mockus is a good guy...but his agenda's still a big mystery. And, while Colombia's come a long way in terms of security and quality of life, perhaps it still needs to make concentrating on the guerrillas and other outlaw groups its top priority. And, clearly, Santos, the man who bombed Raul Reyes' camp in Ecuador, would do that.

There's also a green factor which is missing here. The drug erradication campaign may be futile or worthwhile, but it clearly is disastrous for the environment. Because drugs are illegal, jungle is cleared to plant drug crops, herbicides are sprayed on that jungle and people's homes, and untold quantities of used chemicals are poured into streams. If drugs were legalized, they'd be cultivated and produced like wine grapes and tobacco - with some modicum of environmental controls.

For greens, at least, drug legalization/depenalization is a no-brainer. But I haven't heard of Mockus, or any other candidate, taking a stand on this issue which is so fundamental to Colombia. I'll keep waiting.

This blog blogged by Mike Ceaser, owner of Bogotá Bike Tours and Rentals