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COLOMBIA: Vote-Buying and Front Men
By Javier Darío Restrepo*
BOGOTÁ (IPS) - During Sunday's
legislative elections in Colombia - in
which rightwing President Álvaro Uribe's
allies were the big winners - polling
stations in one-third of the country's
municipalities were at risk of violence,
corruption or fraud, according to the
ombudsman's office and election
observers, who reported vote-buying and
pressure on voters.
Some of the public were also alarmed at
the appearance of the National
Integration Party (PIN), a reincarnation
of the National Democratic Alliance (ADN)
party, which was banned by the electoral
court due to irregularities.
The organisers of the controversial ADN
are in prison or under investigation for
their ties to the far-right paramilitary
militias, which are accused of heavy
involvement in the drug trade as well as
appalling human rights abuses in this
South American country that has been in
the grip of an armed conflict since
1964.
The legislative polls drew attention
worldwide not only because they were
seen as an indication of voter intention
for the May elections - in which Uribe
would have won a third term hands down,
according to opinion polls, if the
courts had not thwarted attempts last
month to modify the constitution to
allow him to stand again - but also
because of scandals that have surrounded
Congress for years.
As an editorial in the El Espectador
newspaper put it, "Over the last eight
years, Congress has been caught up in
the worst crisis in its history."
There have been corruption scandals
involving legislators swapping votes for
government contracts or public posts, as
well as the so-called "parapolitics"
scandal in which one-third of the
members of Congress have either been
arrested or investigated since 2006 for
alleged ties to the paramilitary groups.
According to a report by the Bogotá
think tank Corporación Nuevo Arco Iris,
13 of the candidates on the electoral
list of the U party are currently under
investigation in the scandal, as well as
11 from the Conservative Party, six from
ALAS and five from Radical Change - all
of which form part of Uribe's governing
coalition - and five from the opposition
Liberal Party.
Despite the legal prosecutions, many
politicians have found a way to maintain
their influence through relatives or
friends who act as their front men.
Controlling Congress through others is
an old practice that was used by
druglords like the late Pablo Escobar
(1949-1993) of the Medellín cartel,
Gilberto and Miguel Rodríguez of the
Cali cartel, and paramilitary chief
Salvatore Mancuso, who shocked the
country when he boasted that the
paramilitaries controlled 30 percent of
Congress.
The Rodríguez brothers and Mancuso are
in prison in the United States, to which
they were extradited along with other
paramilitary chiefs on drug trafficking
and money laundering charges.
Columnist Hernando Gómez Buendía said
the next president would basically be
picked in Sunday's elections, in which
the big winner was the U Party, led by
former defence minister Juan Manuel
Santos.
The U Party's strong showing Sunday
prompted Santos, the poll favourite for
the upcoming presidential elections, to
declare that "Today the U party has won
- the party of President Uribe."
According to government spokespersons,
the elections were the smoothest and
calmest in 30 years.
But foreign observers reported that
vote-buying and fraud was as bad as, or
worse than, in the last elections. They
also denounced undue pressure on voters,
such as the threat of blocking poor
voters' access to health care if they
did not cast their ballots for a given
candidate.
When the election results began to
trickle in, there were celebrations in a
number of prison cells in Colombia.
Álvaro García, a former senator
sentenced last month to 40 years in
prison for ordering a 2000 massacre of
15 peasants in the northern town of
Macayepo, made sure he will continue to
be active in politics in his region
through his sister Teresita García, who
was elected to Congress Sunday.
Other newly elected legislators are the
wife of a former governor who was
sentenced to seven years in prison; the
son of an imprisoned lottery
businesswoman charged with murder and
money laundering; the political partner
of a congressman; and the cousin of a
former senator who is on trial.
In short, the two parties with the
largest number of legislators in prison
or facing prosecution were the big
winners Sunday.
The U Party won 27 seats in the
102-member Senate, while the
Conservative Party took 24. The two
parties also garnered the largest number
of seats in the 166-member lower house:
44 and 47, respectively. Between them,
the two main ruling parties won over 50
percent of the seats in both houses of
Congress.
As a result, over the next four years,
Uribe will enjoy a stronger political
influence than any of his predecessors
did.
Sunday's results also indicate that the
phenomenon of "parapolitics" - the
alliance between political and
paramilitary leaders - is alive and
well.
The non-governmental Electoral Observers
Mission (MOE) denounced widespread
vote-buying and fraud, including
scholarships in exchange for votes,
ballots cast using the identity cards of
people who have been forcibly
disappeared, or people voting with other
people's IDs.
And according to the head of the
Organisation of American States (OAS)
election observers mission, Enrique
Correa, in the northern town of Magangué,
votes were paid for at the polling
stations.
Now that the governing coalition's hold
on power was strengthened in Sunday's
elections, there are no guarantees that
these corrupt practices will disappear.
To judge by the outcome, the link
between the drug mafias and
paramilitaries and success at the polls
was strengthened.
By contrast, election platforms offering
a chance for change fared poorly on
Sunday: the leftwing Alternative
Democratic Pole will now have eight
senators, instead of 10.
And presidential candidate Sergio
Fajardo, a former mayor of Medellín, saw
his hopes buried in the polls.
Those who are pessimistic over Uribe's
continued influence are starting to look
to the Green Party, now that former
Bogotá mayor Antanas Mockus (1995-1997
and 2001-2003) won the party's primaries
- the only sign of change on Sunday.
"Displaced from democracy"
On Saturday, 13,200 people from the
southwestern department of Nariño, on
the Pacific coast, were fleeing
harassment by Los Rastrojos, a
paramilitary group.
Do those displaced by the war
effectively have the right to vote?
"In January and February, 3,300 people
were displaced, especially in the
Pacific coast region," Jorge Rojas,
president of the Consultancy for Human
Rights and Displacement (CODHES), a
prominent local human rights group, told
IPS. "These were massive displacements
of people pushed out by paramilitary
groups. These people aren't even
thinking about the elections - they're
focused on surviving."
The government acknowledged that at
least 54,000 internally displaced
persons had difficulties voting.
Colombia has one of the largest
populations of internally displaced
people in the world, numbering nearly
five million according to CODHES.
"The displaced, because of their
situation, are not only displaced by the
armed conflict, but would appear to be
displaced from democracy. There are no
guarantees for them to participate in
elections," said Rojas.
* With additional reporting by Constanza
Vieira (Bogotá). |
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