After four years of strong social struggle, where the Colombian people took to the streets against Duque’s genocidal and precarious government, last March 13, 2022, the parliamentary elections and the inter-party primary elections were held to define the presidential candidates of three coalitions: the Historical Pact, Team for Colombia and the Hope Center Coalition. This first electoral stage, a preamble to the presidential elections of May 2022, was very important, since the main political forces of the country faced each other in an atypical scenario. Some were driven by the strength they channeled from the social outburst, such as the Historical Pact, and others, strongly questioned, such as the Democratic Center and the other sectors of the right wing responsible for the economic, political and social crisis that led the people to the streets.
The results of this first scenario allow drawing several conclusions for a first presidential round, which will be marked by a strong polarization between the so-called “progressivism” of Petro and a Uribism version 3.0 in the body of Federico Gutiérrez.
Presidential primary elections: the polarization between “progressivism” and the right is intensifying
After the decline of mobilization in the country, the great majority of sectors named the current electoral juncture as the continuation of what could not be achieved in the streets. The main banners or slogans that were raised revolved around “now change is coming”, “now we protest at the ballot box”, “we will defeat Uribism”, among others, but these elections proved the opposite, the right wing is still more alive than ever and end up validating that only the organized fight in the streets will open a way out for a real change in Colombia.
Petro the most voted candidate, a bittersweet victory
If we go to the pure analysis in statistical terms, the Historical Pact was the big winner, said coalition obtained more than 5.5 million votes, where Gustavo Petro was the winner obtaining a historic vote, with more than 4.4 million votes, far above Francia Márquez whose vote was 780 thousand, a candidacy that deserves a particular mention. Although Petro obtained such a sweeping victory, if we compare his particular vote with the closest one, which was the first presidential round of 2018, it decreased by almost 360 thousand votes and the Coalition only managed to attract one million new votes, a matter of concern taking into account the strong expectation that surrounded them, from which some deductions could be drawn:
- Although the Historical Pact had an important impulse due to the strength deployed in the streets, it still fails to captivate a large part of the population, abstention increased by almost 2% with respect to the 2018 parliamentary elections and there were more than one million blank votes. Although presidential elections are not handled in the same way as parliamentary elections, the Pact does not have it easy.
- Petro is being billed by the alliances he has made from above in the Pact: the participation of the anti-rights Saade, Roy Barreras and Benedetti, the composition of the closed lists, the meetings with the Liberal Party and Luis Perez, have made that mainly a sector of youth and women have doubts and have decided to bet on other forces or abstain.
- Facing the machinery, clientelism, corruption, without the organized force in the streets, trusting in the institutions, is only an illusion. The social outburst did not manage to give a forceful blow to the regime, nor to its political structures, it only dispersed them, as shown by the results obtained by its parties in the parliamentary elections.
Francia Márquez: vice-presidential candidate of the Historical Pact
The results obtained by Francia Márquez in these elections turned her into a new political phenomenon in the country. Having obtained more than 780 thousand votes, being her first time in an electoral contest and without having machinery compared to other candidates, put her in a position that a few months ago was unthinkable. She was the third most voted in these elections, she obtained a higher vote than candidates such as Alex Char, David Barguil, Enrique Peñalosa, Sergio Fajardo, Alejandro Gaviria, Jorge Enrique Robledo, Juan Manuel Galán, among others, whose experience, machinery, or party support, or all together, did not allow them to surpass her in votes.
Francia, an Afro-descendant candidate, a woman from a popular and marginalized neighborhood, was the one who embodied the most radical vote within the consultation of the Historical Pact, the one that could be said to have gathered the most heartfelt feelings of the social movement. Her speech brought her closer to a sector of young people and women, who, seeing Petro increasingly to the right, saw in Francia a different person to trust, because they felt that the questions she made to Petro’s policy of alliances with the Liberal Party and the contradictions with Saade’s “pro-life” regarding the right to abortion and the rights of women and dissidents, among others, were theirs and legitimate.
Petro, upon not reaching an agreement with the Liberals, since the vice-presidential position was the bargaining card, opted for Francia as his vice-presidential formula. However, Petro continues to seek the support of the Liberals, an issue that puts Francia in a contradiction, since she does not agree with an alliance with this party.
It is noteworthy that when analyzing the sectors that promoted Francia in these primary elections, it is found that the majority vote was in Bogota with more than 250 thousand votes, while in Cauca, where she is from, she barely reached 20,000. This could be read as the fact that today a large sector of the democratic vanguard in the country is the basis of this new political bet. Although this important fact must be recognized in the framework of the current politics of the country, Francia still moves in the path of reformism and the development of a genuine revolutionary project in Colombia needs that she becomes politically independent from the project of the Historical Pact, which is not a revolutionary project to change the country.
Federico Gutiérrez, the real card of Uribism
The Team for Colombia was the first card of the far right in the country to measure its electoral strength after the failure with Duque, the fact that Óscar Iván Zuluaga did not participate in this consultation and his subsequent withdrawal from the presidential race prove it. Federico Gutiérrez was the winner with more than 2.5 million votes, well above his pursuers such as Alex Char and David Barguil.
The particularity of this coalition is that the votes were concentrated in some regions of the country, for example, in the Colombian coast Char and Barguil reached their highest vote, and in Antioquia the highest vote was for Federico Gutierrez thanks to the influence of the Democratic Center. Although the Team for Colombia only had 3.5 million votes, the fact that the Conservative Party, the Democratic Center and the Liberal Party did not participate in these primary elections makes Federico Gutiérrez become the main card of the right wing in the country to face Petro.
The first movements of this regrouping of the right wing in the country are already beginning to be seen, Zuluaga’s resignation and subsequent adhesion to Gutierrez’s campaign, the backing of the U party and the decision of Cambio Radical not to run for the presidential elections. All this is shaping a scenario with an approximate of more than 9 million votes taking into account the results obtained by the right wing in Congress.
There is no room for centers, the failure of the Hope Center Coalition
Something that the elections of March 13, 2022 made very clear was that the country today is not for half-measures. Although the Hope Center Coalition got more than 2 million votes, its participation was a failure, although in Congress the story was different with a considerable number of seats. Fajardo won the consultation with less than one million votes and candidates such as Alejandro Gaviria and Jorge Enrique Robledo were surpassed by the so far unknown Carlos Amaya. The expectations surrounding the New Liberalism led by Juan Manuel Galán were not matched at the polls; it was not enough for him to instrumentalize the figure of his murdered father to gather an important force in the country.
The elements that explain why today the center was the big loser of these primary elections could be summarized as follows:
After having obtained more than 4 million votes in the first presidential round of 2018, Fajardo took a toll on the fact that he did not take a position on the second presidential round and called for a blank vote while his voters were deciding whether to vote for Petro to prevent Duque’s arrival to power.
The questioned Mayor’s Office of Claudia López in Bogotá had significant weight, as she was from the Green Alliance party, she brought the Coalition into a negative light, causing the Historical Pact to recover the capital city.
Most of the forces that were part of this coalition had great ruptures in the process, the divisions between participating in the Historical Pact or in the Hope Center Coalition made them lose a lot of strength, an issue that conditioned their participation not only in the debates but also in the perception of voting.
Although Fajardo will remain in the first round of the presidential race, the votes of this coalition will be a fortress for both Federico Gutiérrez and Petro’s campaigns.
The composition of the congress: was there a turn to the left?
It is more than proven that what has happened in the streets in the last years, mainly with what happened in the strike that started on April 28, 2021, has the ruling class and its traditional political structures uncomfortable and on the defensive. With the initial scrutiny, the Historic Pact won the highest vote and obtained 16 seats in the Senate and 25 in the lower house, making it the first alternative force in the history of the country to reach those seats in the Congress. The complaints made by the Historical Pact because not a single vote appeared in its favor in more than 23,000 polling stations and the subsequent turn of this force towards the recount have allowed that more than 300,000 votes to be recovered. Some forces such as the Conservative Party and the Democratic Center have lost seats in favor of the Historical Pact, an issue that has not been easy to handle by the Government institutions. Uribe and Pastrana openly speak of fraud and of disregarding the electoral result, encouraging a political crisis of reserved forecast.
With the new scrutiny, if we group the so-called alternative sectors, by Senate and lower house, Historical Pact, Hope Center Coalition, Commons, indigenous communities, in total they represent approximately 40% of the total number of seats, where the right wing still maintains the parliamentary majority with approximately 55%. The right wing dispersed as a bloc, some of its forces such as the Democratic Center had a downturn, but parties such as the Conservative increased their strength, which creates a scenario for the next government, which will have to expand its policy of negotiation, class conciliation and clientelism (jam) so that its projects can pass.
More than a turn to the left, we will have a congress submerged in uncertainty, at a disadvantage for the so-called alternatives, which although they will have greater strength, it will still not be enough to impose a different political agenda, and many of the projects they have proposed in the campaign will have strong difficulties to carry them out.
The Liberal Party: who will succeed in seducing it?
The Liberal Party is one of the main responsible for the economic, political and social crisis of the country, this party has always acted independently in the first electoral stages and according to the results obtained, it enters to negotiate with whoever has the best chance of winning. The clientelist way in which the Liberal Party acts has allowed it to participate in the governments of the last 40 years, a matter that will not change, as it is already shown by the actions it has taken in the last months; the meetings with Petrismo, the flirtation with Luis Pérez and the little outlining towards a concrete candidacy, show that they are testing the ground to finally opt for whoever gives them the biggest share in the bureaucracy pie.
The more than 2 million votes obtained in the Congress of the Republic allow the Liberal Party to be open to any type of negotiation, from now on, given that Petro did not have a convincing victory in this first stage and the severing of relations announced by César Gaviaría with the Historical Pact, the possibility grows that the liberals will be more inclined to support Federico Gutiérrez, everything will depend on the results of the first presidential round and those votes will be crucial in the road to the house of Nariño.
Uribism lost its hegemony but is still alive: its defeat is not in the ballot boxes!
Just as Gustavo Petro and the Historical Pact benefited from what happened in the social outburst, the people strongly punished the Democratic Center at the polls. The party of the current Duque government carried the social discontent and lost 6 seats in the Senate, they went from being the main force in 2018 to occupy the fourth place in the current race. Despite its numbers being reduced, it maintains an important vote, 2 million votes are not small numbers and two of the most voted candidates are from this party.
After 20 years of Uribism’s dominance as the main force of the bourgeoisie in Colombia, the erosion of its main figure Alvaro Uribe Velez and the economic, political and social crisis that triggered strong mobilizations in the last four years, weakened Uribism and ended up fragmenting the existing unity of the Colombian right wing, but since the regime was not defeated through mobilization, Uribism and the right wing obtained a breathing space that allowed them to accommodate themselves for the current electoral participation, since the right wing parties with their machines managed to survive the failure of Duque’s government and kept their strength almost intact.
It is more than evident that real defeats cannot be obtained from the right wing in its territory (including the electoral one), that what allows real triumphs are the organization of the fight on the streets with a revolutionary leadership and program, and that the fact that the forces of the Historic Pact and the Hope Center Coalition have dragged us to the electoral scenario, when the fight to defeat Uribism in the social outburst could be deepened, gave them an oxygen tank facilitating their regrouping.
From the Historical Pact to the Broad Front for Democracy and Peace: Are we heading towards a greater right-wing “progressivism”?
The more than 5.5 million votes obtained by the Historical Pact in the presidential primary elections put Gustavo Petro already in the second presidential round, but this political flow is insufficient and was not expected for a triumph that would liquidate the right wing in the electoral contest. The fact that the right wing has maintained its votes in the parliamentary elections with more than 9 million votes among the different forces, and with the announcement of some alliances to join the campaign of Federico Gutiérrez, the Historical Pact has a difficult task in the attainment of more than 7 million votes if it wants to obtain a victory.
The way left for the Historic Pact is to collect votes independently in an attempt to convince more than one million people who voted blank and to drag some abstentionist vote, the latter unlikely. On the other hand, it will have to speed up and strengthen a series of alliances with right-wing sectors that will secure an important vote, either sectors of the Hope Center Coalition such as the Green Alliance, which has been announcing the possibility of meeting with both Federico Gutiérrez and Petro, or to propose a series of important concessions to the Liberal Party so that it will lean towards Petrismo, since Petro still does not lose hope of receiving the support of that sector.
And that is where Petro proposes to continue: in his speech after learning the results of the primary elections, he proposed that the Pact must make a new leap towards the establishment of a Broad Front for Democracy and Peace, where forces of all kinds may converge, since he understands that in order to double his vote he will need the right wing, and that will imply building a new program where the interests of the sectors of the bourgeoisie that he may incorporate will not be confronted. So the “change” will be nothing more than an illusion and will become a nominal renewal of what already governed us.
Whatever happens, our task is to organize
There is no guarantee that in a next alternative government such as the one proposed by the Historic Pact there will be real changes, with the current political panorama, where the right wing came out with a second wind by maintaining its dominance in Congress, the road that Petrismo will have to travel will lead it to betray the masses; when it makes a pact with the right wing it is the working class and the popular sectors who end up bearing the crisis.
We cannot trust the institutions, the fraud that was experienced shows that the right wing is not going to give in easily and it will be the street that will allow them to impose a real agenda for change. Today more than ever we must be aware that we must organize again to face the next government, be it Petro’s or the right wing. The only way to guarantee and obtain what we have been fighting for the last four years, is to build a different way out, where those who put their lives on the streets, the precarious youth, the women, the Afro-communities, the working class and the popular sectors, are the ones who open the road to a radical transformation.
Impulso Socialista-IS-LIS and Grupo de Trabajadores Socialistas-GTS
