Deadly Democracy

A propaganda tricycle in Bogota, where campaigning has been generally peaceful.

While the mayoral elections in Bogotá have been carried out with a relative order and civility, that's not true in many parts of rural Colombia, where the campaigns have turned deadly.

El Tiempo reports that an astounding 41 candidates have been murdered during the campaign. In most countries, when even a single political candidate gets assassinated, it makes national news. But here, we've heard little about it.

The murdered include Luis Gonzalo Marinez, a Liberal Party mayoral candidate in a town near the Ecuadorean border in Nariño Department, who was shot by several men while campaigning Oct. 13th. (That same day, a mayoral candidate in Salento said that armed men tried to kill him and the current mayor.)

On Sept. 30, Giraldo de Jesus Gomez, a candidate for city council in Antioquia Department, was murdered by thieves who entered his home.

On July 11, Fernando Vargas Restrepo, running for mayor of the town of Yumbo near Cali, was shot and later died. Vargas Restrepo was a local congressman, and had made accusations that drug money had entered the campaign.

Pres. Juan Manuel Santos defended his handling of security (which people have questioned because of the guerrillas' recent killings of 20 soldiers) by claiming that the number of violent incidents connected to the elections was 'only' 97 - or 19 fewer than in the 2007 elections.

Either way, it's a sad commentary on Colombia's level of violence, which is unlikely to change much as long as outlaw groups continue managing huge flows of drug money.

El Tiempo: Narcotrafickers and FARC behind Candidates' Crimes

Ten Candidates have been Assassinated in the Valle del Cauca

Elections Under Fire

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

Dry End to a Wet Week

Demonstrating either how seriously Colombians take voting- or how scared they are of it - the country banned alchohol sales beginning six p.m. Friday, 48 hours before the vote. Hmmm. Are they afraid that people will become too crazily excited over democracy?

Ironically, this last week was one of the wettest in history, in terms of rain.

Here's a billboard in which Santos plays the Chavez card - without naming the leftist Venezuelan leader. Chavez has warned several times about the consequences of Colombia electing Santos, who pissed off Chavez by bombing a FARC guerrilla camp located in Ecuador.

On Monday, the second round, between Santos and Mockus, will officially begin.

Written by Mike Ceaser

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