Analysis: A powder keg called Colombia

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – To say that in recent years there has been anything that resembles calm in Colombia may be misleading. The high rates of violence, the clash over judicial independence, and the lack of progress in the implementation of the peace process would put to rest any reasoning about hypothetical tranquility.

The problem is that to all this, as of today, even more uncertainty has been added: over health, derived from the pandemic, of course; but also economic issues, with an alarming increase in extreme poverty and a tenacious cash flow problem.

All this, amplified by the 2022 elections, places Colombia once again at a moment that is often recurrent in its history, when everything seems to be on the verge of exploding… but ultimately calms down.

(Almost) everyone against Gustavo Petro

Next year’s elections already permeate every aspect and decision of Colombian public life. If in any other place in the world the drawing of possible candidates would be defined by now, drawing a diagram in Colombia is chimerical, since the convoluted process of consultations in the parties may raise the number of candidates to about twenty, which will eventually be reduced to no more than five with possibilities in the first round, scheduled for May 2022, two months after the congressional elections.

The only clear thing, from right to left, is that Gustavo Petro is the rival to beat. The former mayor of Bogotá, former M19 guerrilla fighter, has undertaken a shift to pragmatism similar to the one that brought Andrés Manuel López Obrador to power in Mexico in 2018, attracting politicians of all colors but, above all, with powerful clientelist networks and trying to scare away the fear that for many sectors, mainly economic, the first leftist president in the history of Colombia would represent.

In the progressive center, the bet of the former mayor of Medellin Sergio Fajardo, in a new attempt to achieve the presidency, is as certain as the number of buts that emerge every time his name appears.

The expectations generated by the fact that the ex-Minister of Health Alejandro Gaviria is running are as many as the challenges ahead.

On the conservative side, a great alliance is expected, but it is not clear how much weight the candidate of the Democratic Center, the party in power, which is led with an iron fist by former President Alvaro Uribe, will have.

Slowness in the vaccination plan

Like most Latin American countries, except for Chile and Uruguay, Colombia suffers a considerable delay in both the arrival and the application of vaccines against Covid-19.

Far from crying out against more developed countries or the pharmaceutical industry, President Iván Duque shows an optimistic message that clashes with the data.

This week he surpassed the symbolic barrier of 1 million vaccinated, approximately 2 doses per 100 inhabitants, about half that of Mexico, for example, although at a faster pace since he started applying the doses later.

To vaccinate 70% of the population before the end of the year, a target set by the authorities, some 200,000 vaccines will have to be administered daily: so far, a total of 109,000 have been administered, and this last week the daily doses have been approximately 50,000.

A tax reform disguised as a social reform

Colombia will be the first country in the region -and many more will surely follow- to implement tax reform, as necessary as it is late for many; a bone of contention with the markets to maintain the country’s investment grade rating, and another fuse for the citizens’ weariness.

The truth is that, for the aid envisaged by the Government to reach the citizens, money is required and now 40% of all products are exempt from VAT, the country’s main revenue source.

President Iván Duque insists that food for daily consumption will not be taxed, but he does not offer a reliable explanation to the doubts generated by the reform which will clash with a Congress immersed in the electoral process.

Tension in the streets

One of the most recurrent comments in any conversation is that “there will be tension in the streets”. The pandemic has returned 3 million people to the poverty line; the fuse that ignited at the end of 2019 has not been extinguished -it was re-ignited with the police brutality of last September- and the growing xenophobia over hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants add fuel to the fire amid an electoral context.

On the political level, there are many voices, inside and outside the governing party, warning that the economic and social setback, coupled with a vaccination plan that is not taking off, could be a burden for the Democratic Center and undermine its aspirations in the presidential elections.

Chronic insecurity

Drug trafficking continues to be one of the major problems facing Colombia. Clashes between FARC and ELN dissidents with other criminal gangs or in a free-for-all in some departments, only perpetuate a chronic problem.

Colombia no longer registers the large massacres of dozens of people that it may have suffered in the past, but the killings are constant.

As of March 17th, there have been 17 incidents this year, with 65 victims, most of whom social leaders – Colombia is the country with highest record of murdered environmentalists on the planet- bloodshed which the government is incapable of remedy.

The perception of insecurity has also skyrocketed in big cities, such as Bogotá. A recent survey showed that 76% of the capital’s inhabitants feel more insecure, 16 points more than in 2019, especially given the increase in robberies.

A report to reconcile the country

Colombia will see the ‘Truth Commission’ deliver its report to the country three years after the Havana peace agreements between the Government and the FARC.

What was presumed to be a milestone in the reconciliation of the country, may exacerbate the already growing polarization, given that the Executive branch, the governing party in parliament, and the critics of the pact have not conceded a millimeter of peace this time.

Meanwhile, from the ranks of the ex-combatants, there are continuous calls to accelerate the implementation of the agreements to put an end to the killing of leaders and to facilitate the incorporation to civilian life in rural areas, the most affected by violence.

The Special Jurisdiction for Peace’s (JEP) devastating report, which brings the number of false positives to more than 6,400, has once again placed ex-president Álvaro Uribe, long an opponent of the Havana agreements, under the spotlight.

Uribe and justice

There is no other figure in Colombian political history who has been in the spotlight as much as Álvaro Uribe Vélez, whom many still refer to by his two surnames.

Twenty years after his arrival in power, the country has a glimpse at post-Uribism, although it is not yet able to feel it. The wear and tear are such that the legacy of the ex-president faces the paradox that, after 8 years in power and having appointed the 2 presidents who succeeded him -Santos chose to break with him once there, something that Uribe has neither digested nor forgiven-, he ends up leaving a leftist president in power.

In the meantime, the next year will continue to be marked by the judicial proceeding he is facing, which has produced a full clash between one of the institutions on which the State is built, the Supreme Court, and the Prosecutor General’s Office, which is inclined to acquit Uribe.

Those around the ex-president assume that the trial is inevitable, and could well come in the middle of next year’s electoral campaign.

Source: El Pais