Colombian Presidential Race Heats up

Updated March 25 - Judging by the results of Colombia’s March 14 legislative elections, former Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos is off to a strong start in the race for the country’s presidency. His party won the lion’s share of votes and captured the largest portion of seats in the Senate and Chamber of Representatives. But the Conservative Party, which held its presidential primary the same day, came in second and some analysts posit that the March 19 confirmation of Noemí Sanín as the Conservative candidate could divide President Álvaro Uribe’s coalition and create a challenge for Santos in the first round of elections on May 30. Both candidates face a number of competitors.

The presidential campaign season had gotten off to a halting start while Colombians waited to find out about whether their president would be allowed to seek a third term. The constitutional court voted 7 to 2 against a reelection referendum on February 26, and, with the March 14 election narrowing the wide pool of candidates, the race is off at a gallop.

Santos appears to be the candidate to beat. He leads the Social National Unity Party—known more commonly as the Partido de La U, or the U Party—which pulled in a quarter of votes on March 14 and increased its representation in the 102-strong Senate from 20 to 27. The Party also increased its stake in the 166-member Chamber from 30 to 49. Santos gets a boost in the race as Uribe’s former defense minister. Most Colombians were opposed to a third Uribe term, but his administration maintains a high level of popularity, particularly as a result of the country’s dramatically improved security situation and enhanced economic conditions. Santos himself is an economist and served at the ministerial level in prior governments, including as finance minister for President Andrés Pastrana. A new poll by Invamer/Gallup puts Santos ahead of other candidates with over 34 percent support.

Sanín could serve as a strong competitor and force a second round of elections on June 20 should Santos fail to win a simple majority. Until Friday, she was locked in a tight race with Andrés Felipe Arias to lead the Conservative Party. After nearly a week in which the vote tally was so close that no winner could be confirmed, Sanín—a former foreign minister and ambassador—was declared the winner on March 19. Uribe once called Arias, his former agriculture minister, a “better version” of himself and the 36-year-old politician was widely bestowed with the nickname “Uribito.” But Arias’ connection to an agricultural-subsidy scandal hurt his campaign; three-time candidate Sanín pulled in 30,000 more votes to serve as the candidate of the Conservative Party, which is also part of Uribe’s political coalition and the second biggest parliamentary force. La Silla Vacía explores ways Sanín’s confirmed candidacy could shake up the race depending on how political alliances are formed as well as whether Uribe, who has not yet endorsed a particular candidate, chooses to support Santos or remain ambiguous. The Inamer/Gallup poll places Sanín in second place with over 23 percent.

Santos and Sanín are just two out of a bevy of candidates, and the legislative elections proved surprises are possible. The Green Party snatched up five Senate seats and Antanas Mockus, the former mayor of Bogota, won the party primary. Semana reports that Mockus replaced Sergio Fajardo, the former mayor of Medellin credited with turning that city around economically and security-wise, as “the phenomenon of the moment.” Mockus, seen as an option for centrist and left-leaning voters, made education and social programs central to his mayoralty and candidacy. In an interview with El Espectador, he suggests creating an alliance with Fajardo and other candidates, which could also pose a challenge to the pro-Uribe coalition. Mockus currently polls third with 10.4 percent of the vote.

Even without Uribe in the race, some argue that he remains central to it. “The two parties more closely tied to the president got half of the seats in Congress,” notes Marcela Sanchez in the Latin American Herald Tribune. “And while the presidential candidates struggle to distinguish themselves, they realize they can’t be too anti-Uribe if they expect to win.”

Learn more:

• Read an AS/COA hemispheric update with profiles of the candidate.
• Semana coverage of a March 23 presidential candidate.
• National Civil Registry of Colombia
• Colombia’s National Electoral Council.
• Website of the Electoral Observation Mission, an organization that draws together independent and governmental agencies for electoral monitoring in Colombia.
• El Tiempo’s Elections 2010 page, including an interactive look at the results from the March 14 legislative and presidential primary elections.
• Colombia Decide, a social media aggregation site that brings together real time news about the candidates and their campaigns.
• Votebien offers a full spectrum of interactive maps, graphs, and multimedia in its coverage of the elections.