Party Politics, Reformism and Political Violence in Colombia
Chernick, Marc W.
Colombia's two nineteenth-century oligarchical parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives, still dominate the political arena at the close of the twentieth century. This fact alone separates...
...Few residents showed up to vote in the October 1997 municipal elections, which were boycotted by the FARC...
...Colombia's traditional parties managed to survive the social changes and dislocations of the twentieth century through a remarkable ability to mediate interparty conflict, to negotiate an end to partisan bloodletting, and to incorporate some of the new political actors unleashed by the forces of modernization, thus preventing third parties from making inroads into Colombia's electoral politics...
...government to "decertify" Colombia in 1996 and 1997, adding to the sensation of political crisis...
...The first major challenge came in the As the country approaches this year's presidential elections, both Liberal and Conservative parties find themselves severely weakened...
...Yet prominent 40 NACI REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 2 a BREPORT ON CHIAPAS & COLOMBIA leaders from both parties called upon Samper to resign, and though he has held onto power, his ability to govern the country has been seriously compromised...
...The media, access to financing, and ability to mobilize the electorate continue to tip the scales in favor of the traditional parties...
...One example is the emergence of "civic candidates"-individuals linked to social and cultural institutions but with no party affiliation-many of which offer a progressive alternative to the traditional parties...
...Ironically, the presidential candidate who is most unacceptable to Washington-Horacio Serpa-may also be the individual best positioned to lead a successful peace process...
...Yet guerrilla violence has spread, a dirty war has proliferated, and paramilitaries have become part of the landscape of violence...
...The now infamous case of President Samper, who apparently accepted financing from the Cali Cartel during the second round of the 1994 presidential elections, is a case in point...
...With Samper reduced to practicing the politics of survival, the growing vacuum at the center of power has prompted many political sectors-Congress, the military, party leaders, gamonales, business, paramilitaries, guerrillas-to push their own agendas and take advantage of the executive's weakness...
...The one dissident voice comes from outside the traditional parties-retired general and former chief of the armed forces Harold Bedoya...
...He will also face the challenge of mending fences with Washington, which does not view him favorably...
...By 1994, its electoral support had fallen to less than 2...
...The official candidate, Misael Pastrana, defeated former President Gustavo Rojas Pinilla of the Popular National Alliance (ANAPO) by two points, in elections that many considered fraudulent...
...One of Serpa's main adversaries is Alfonso Valdivieso...
...But the assassination of 3,000 of its leaders and followers-including elected officials and two presidential candidates-has decimated the movement...
...Since resigning as attorney general last year, Valdivieso has been attempting to transform his anticorruption campaign into a successful presidential candidacy...
...Political elites split over the investigation, and Congress ultimately decided that there was not sufficient evidence to prosecute Samper...
...Rather, they have used their wealth to suborn the leadership of the traditional parties in order to protect their interests and to counter the expansion of the guerrilla armies that extort their property and threaten their local power...
...In this context, other attempts to challenge the hegemony of the traditional parties have emerged...
...NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS Marc W Chernick teaches in the Department of Government at Georgetown University and is a member of NACLA's editorial board.REPORT ON CHIAPAS & COLOMBIA A defaced election poster in Puerto Rico, Caqueti, a FARC stronghold...
...But they have also won a dramatic reduction of their sentences as part of the government's surrender and plea-bargaining policies, and the cartel leaders are safe from extradition, as the constitutional amendment recently passed by Congress authorizing extradition is not retroactive...
...Yet now the parties are fragmented, with little coherence beyond the attach0 ment of the party name to competing interests...
...Some polls have shown Bedoya with up to 19% of voters' preferences, and at times running second to Serpa...
...Virtually all the candidates from the traditional parties support some form of negotiation with the guerrillas, although there are differences in their strategies and possible concessions...
...But even as the National Front brought an end to the partisan violence and consolidated the Liberal and Conservative hold on power, it generated new forms of opposition, ranging from dissident factions of the traditional parties to armed guerrilla movements...
...The bloody decadein which over 200,000 were killed-ended in 1958 when the two parties brokered a power-sharing pact, known as the National Front, which formally excluded other forces from the electoral arena...
...Other groups, including the leaders of the country's big industrial conglomerates-financial groups like those built around the holdings of Jos6 Marfa Santo Domingo or Carlos Ardila Lulle-wield vastly more political power at the national level than the Cali upstarts...
...Colombia's unrelenting dirty war has made it difficult for third parties such as the M-19 and the UP to turn this state of affairs to their advantage...
...He has since emerged as an independent presidential candidate with a law-and-order platform that calls for expanding the counterinsurgency war...
...Leading the field was Samper's principal defender, Minister of the Interior Horacio Serpa, now the undisputed standard bearer of the official wing of the Liberal Party...
...The UP achieved some success, winning 14 seats in Congress in 1986...
...How Bedoya fares in the elections will be a good indicator of how many Colombians oppose negotiations with the guerrillas...
...he rise of the drug trade, of course, has resulted in a major transformation in Colombia's distribution of power...
...Mayors have been elected directly since 1988, and governors since 1991...
...Bedoya led the hard-line opposition to the peace process from within the government throughout the Samper Administration, until he was forced out late last year...
...Apathy and abstentionism-part of the historical legacy of the National Front-are part of the equation of power...
...This fact alone separates Colombia from its South American neighbors, where traditional post-independence parties ultimately gave way to working and middle-class political organizations and populist coalitions...
...After becoming a legal political party in 1990, the M-19 briefly thrived, winning 28% of the vote in the special election to establish a Constitutional Assembly six months after laying down their arms...
...Indeed, Colombia is commonly referred to in the media as a "narco-democracy" in which the drug lords wield inordinate power over political decision making...
...Power, as fragmented as it is, still rests in the hands of the old party machinery geared to mobilize its share of the electorate...
...The 1998 presidential contest has been fundmentally shaped by the political crisis emanating from the Samper drug-money scandal...
...iven this history of failed attempts to break through the bipartisan political system and the resulting emergence of armed opposition groups, it is no surprise that two themes-reformism and violence-have dominated Colombian politics since the 1980s...
...Colombian Attorney General Alfonso Valdivieso opened an investigation, known as Proceso 8000, against President Samper and other top political figures...
...For nearly two decades, successive Colombian presidents have sought to implement political reforms designed to spur democratization and to decentralize power...
...Liberal and Conservative are only names carried by local leaders within the contested terrain of local and regional power, not unlike the 1940s and 1950s...
...The sole UP senator elected in 1994 was killed the day he took office...
...Alliances between local gamonales, or political bosses, paramilitaries, the armed forces and drug traffickers have transformed much of the Colombian countryside into rival fiefdoms, a mosaic of armed contenders violently disputing territorial and social control with the FARC and the National Liberation Army (ELN...
...In this context, guerrilla warfare emerged as an extension of the struggle for reform...
...Nevertheless, it appears that they will continue to dominate the electoral landscape...
...In this context, decentralization has not meant greater democracy, but greater atomization and corruption...
...cipalities are governed by civic candidates...
...Events surrounding the April 19, 1970 elections highlight the exclusionary nature of the National Front regime...
...Pastrana, who was the Conservative candidate in the 1994 elections, is running a nominally independent campaign, but will seek to mobilize the core Conservative constituency...
...His presidency will be embattled from the start, as he will face opposition from certain sectors within the parties and among the electorate that are hostile to the idea of continuity with the current administration...
...Bedoya, who has made no secret of his view that the guerrillas are nothing but a bunch of drug traffickers, represents a small but significant sector of public opinion that clamors for a military solution to the growing insecurity and violence...
...Nevertheless, in the context of the current crisis, and in the absence of third parties capable of challenging the bipartisan hegemony and generating new alternatives, it appears that the Liberal and Conservative parties will continue to dominate the electoral landscape...
...If neither wins a majority, a second round will be held on June 21, which Serpa will likely win...
...The drug traffickers have become an intermittently effective lobbying group on issues that directly affect their interests, but they do not control Colombia's political agenda...
...Yet the group showed little political vision, and the traditional parties quickly and effectively coopted and marginalized the M-19...
...If the presidential crisis helped shape the candidate pool, it oddly has not defined the campaign issues...
...Three years later, a group of ex-Anapistas, together with a dissident faction of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), founded the April 19th Movement (M-19...
...Since 1982, every president has attempted to reform the bipartisan system and to negotiate some sort of peace with the guerrilla insurgency...
...Attempts to democratically expand the political arena have been gutted by a dirty war that makes the emergence or consolidation of new political parties such as the M19 or the UP impossible...
...While collaboration between the cartel leaders and public officials may exist at levels yet unknown to the public, the evidence suggests that the drug barons do not control or even inordinately shape the political agenda in Colombia...
...But despite overwhelming evidence that leading politicians have knowingly accepted monies proffered by the cartels, there is little evidence that the drug barons have been able to buy off the politicians completely...
...The charges against Samper prompted the U.S...
...he race is likely to come down to Serpa versus Pastrana in the first round of voting on May 31...
...The traditional parties have always been, to some extent, a conglomeration of individual political bosses...
...The other top presidential contender is Andr6s Pastrana of the Conservative Party...
...At the same time, the inability of the traditional parties to bring an end to the violence has weakened them internally, eroding their legitimacy and undermining the authority of the state...
...In Colombia today, peace is the most critical and compelling issue on the political agenda...
...But on April 9, 1948, Gaitin was assassinated, sparking a decade of partisan civil war, known as La Violencia...
...As has happened so often in the past, the principal response to the crisis came from within the traditional parties...
...Yet as the country approaches the presidential elections scheduled for May of this year, both parties are severely weakened, worn down by decades of corruption, internecine factionalism and complicity with violent actors...
...The other ill-fated attempt at a third-party breakthrough was the Patriotic Union (UP), a party founded by the FARC in 1985 within the context of a cease-fire agreement that lasted a scant two years...
...Several attempts to challenge the hegemony of the historic parties have emerged throughout this century, but they all were coopted, marginalized and in some cases, brutally repressed...
...Yet decentralization was instituted within the maelstrom of local conflicts among political bosses, landowners, business interests, drug traffickers, paramilitaries, guerrillas and the armed forces...
...With the exception of Valdivieso's flagging efforts and a few minor candidates within the Liberal Party, the campaign is largely centered on issues of violence and peace...
...The immediate task for Colombia's next president is to negotiate peace with the multiple armed groups operating in the country...
...Serpa openly attacked the United States for meddling in Colombian affairs and attempting to destroy the Samper presidency...
...Currently, over 100 of Colombia's 1,071 muniVOL XXXI, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1998 39REPORT ON CHIAPAS & COLOMBIA Horacio Serpa was chosen as the Liberal Party's presidential candidate at a party convention on January 25, 1998...
...Ironically, the person who would be least acceptable to the United States, Horacio Serpa, may also be the individual best positioned to lead a successful peace process...
...1930s, when Jorge Elidcer Gaitin tried to establish a multiclass, anti-oligarchical coalition, first from outside, then from within, the Liberal Party...
...He is seen as too close to the United States and as having done too much of its anti-Samper bidding...
...It will also reveal the strength of the political right...
...The nationalist rhetoric of Serpa's defense appealed to much of the electorate, even as it caused great alarm in Washington...
...He has long ties to the left, forged in his native department of Santander, but he has pursued his career from within the Liberal Party, and he is credible with the guerrillas as well as with elite business, political and civil society leaders...
...All of the traditional party candidates are seeking to promote some form of a negotiated settlement to the armed conflict and say they are willing to accept major structural changes in the political, social and economic arenas to achieve peace...
...The cartel's principal leaders are now in jail, and Congress recently passed a law authorizing the expropriation of properties and goods acquired with illicit monies...
...Yet it is unlikely that he will be able to transfer his support into sufficient votes to reach the second round...
...As the twentieth century comes to a close, a more pluralistic regime can only emerge in Colombia through a negotiated settlement among all the actors...
...If the next round of talks breaks down, the long-awaited democratization will again be deferred, and Colombia's recurring cycles of violence will continue...
...Their preference seems to be to influence the existing political arena either through violence, corruption, or both...
...But while civic candidates have made important inroads at the local and regional level, it seems highly unlikely that they will be able to articulate an alternative at the national level...
...Nor have they used their economic and social power to promote political alternatives or back alternative movements...
...His successor was forced to flee the country and now lives in exile...
...But today, competition is not between the two historic groups, but between the traditional parties and other groups seeking power, particularly the guerrillas and paramilitaries...
...Yet early polls indicate that he is not likely to succeed...
Vol. 31 • March 1998 • No. 5
