Politics : Duque wins as expected but.....

duque

MORE OR LESS AS EXPECTED

Sunday 27th May has been and gone and fully as expected the candidate of ex-President Uribe Ivan Duque came top with 39%, more or less where he had been polling, however behind him there was a much tighter race for second spot between Gustavo Petro and Sergio Fajardo whilst further down the field we saw the effective end of the political careers of both German Vargas Lleras (the hot favourite just twelve months ago) and Humberto de la Calle in what was arguably the worst result in the history of the Liberal Party. The first winner was Democracy, we had the highest ever first round vote with more than 19 million people attending the booths, the turnout was over 50% which for Colombia is very high, there was not one violent incident across the country, the ELN kept their promised ceasefire and perhaps most amazingly within an hour of the polls closing at 4pm we had around 90% of the votes counted - a very successful election day. Whilst Duque won with 39.1% he has been top of the opinion polls for weeks with similar numbers, the real surprise in the poll was Sergio Fajardo and his centre-left alliance which picked up 4.8 million votes (23.7%) - he had been wary of starting his campaign too early and came up on the rails during the last 10 days, another week and he would likely have made it to the second round. There will also be a lot of regret that he couldn't organize an alliance with Humberto de la Calle which surely would have put him in the second round and perhaps the Presidency. As it is Gustavo Petro (25.1%) will join Ivan Duque in the second round and whilst there were nearly 3 million votes between them, the fact that so many voted for the Fajardo alliance means the second round for now is not in the bag. The key here is Fajardo's Colombia Coalition party and what will they do with their votes over the coming three weeks - elements of the Polo Party for sure will back Petro as they have the same DNA, also some other members of the alliance have already expressed the same opinion but the keys will arguably be Fajardo himself and Antanas Mockus who helped the party to arguably the surprise of the evening - winning the popular vote in Bogota. Whilst there is the possibility that Fajardo could sit down with Petro and the rest of his team and launch a strategy to defeat Duque in the second round it still appears unlikely that Fajardo will do that and instead leave his supporters to make their own decision - the unknown factor is how many of his 4.8 million votes came from the Polo Party but it will be a large amount due to the presence of Jorge Robledo on his team and they will certainly back Petro in Round 2. Vargas Lleras can be expected to throw his much reduced weight behind Duque, things are very liquid in Colombia but not that much - for himself it was a disaster and speaking of disasters De La Calle or rather his Liberal Party now owes money as they lost their deposit, the most powerful political machine in the country vanquished. In terms of Colombia regardless of whether Duque or Petro wins the country has changed forever - if we look back to 2014 fully 70.4% of the votes cast in the first round went to candidates who were well right of centre - this time around we find the left ahead (note in both cases spoilt ballots etc have been removed), clearly there is a shift being caused by a mixture of demographics and simple frustration at the lack of inclusion over the past 16 years - whilst this time around I doubt Fajardo will be bold enough to back Petro and be a potential king maker come 2022 if the country hasn't radically improved for the disenfranchised we will surely be looking at a different situation. One of the factors that may ironically help Duque, if as expected Fajardo sits on the sidelines, is that the man from the middle has consistently polled highest amongst the richest and educated groups and if they are given a free vote they will surely decide to vote for Duque or stay at home - which will have almost the same effect given the gap between the leading candidates. There is little to add at this point as already pointed out by the Economist (and myself) neither Duque or Petro are great options for the country, they are far too devisive but it is what it is. We now await the usual horse trading as Congress members and Senators of the losing parties jockey for position in order to try and assure themselves of a nice job in the new Government, we may be changing but not that fast, but at least for light relief we have the World Cup starting in a few weeks which will at least reduce the exposure - although that said the debates could well get very spicy as there is genuine dislike between the two protagonists. To many Petro is a scary figure and to an extent he is but make no mistake he is highly educated and a brilliant campaigner - he is no Chavez, Maduro or Morales, he is a hybrid of Correa and Lula and that appeals to a massive amount of Colombians, as I stated many times ask not whether Petro will win, ask why he is where he is. As ever my regards to all Roops

Rupert Stebbings

Medellín - Colombia

Contact colombiabyroops@gmail.com

Cel: +57 313 888 2874