BY GARRY LEECH
Colombia's right-wing, pro-US president Alvaro Uribe suffered a double setback at the polls on October 25-26. On October 25, voters rejected most components of a 15-point referendum that Uribe said would give him the necessary tools to fight "terrorism" and corruption, and avoid an Argentina-style economic collapse.
On October 26, Colombians returned to the polls to vote in local government elections. In a significant blow to the right-wing regime, voters elected Luis Eduardo "Lucho" Garzon, a left-wing former trade union leader and outspoken critic of Uribe's economic and security policies as mayor of the capital, Bogota. With a population of 7 million, Bogota's mayorship is considered the country's second most important elected office.
As a result of the electorate's less than stellar backing of Uribe's policies, it is likely that members of Congress will be less fearful of alienating the president in future. If Uribe now insists on imposing the referendum's proposals by presidential decree, congressional and public support for the president will be further eroded.
Uribe's referendum plan hit its first stumbling block back in July when the constitutional court ruled four of its components unconstitutional. The court dismissed Uribe's attempt to extend the term of office for mayors, governors and town council members. The court also declared that Colombians had to vote on the remaining points of the referendum individually, rather than en bloc, as Uribe preferred.
The most important point (question 14) of the referendum called for a two-year freeze on public-sector wages and pensions. According to the Uribe administration, it was essential that the referendum be approved for Colombia to meet the fiscal goals established by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in return for a US$2.1 billion loan received in January.
The IMF has demanded "structural reforms" that will cut the government's deficit to 2.5% of GDP next year, down from 2.8% this year. Uribe said that the passage of the referendum would allow the government to make more money available for repaying the country's foreign debt, which was essential if Colombia was to retain investor confidence.
But opponents urged abstention, so that the referendum would not achieve the 25% turnout required to make it binding. They erected posters that declared: "Don't vote on the referendum. Let the rich pay for the fiscal squeeze."
In the end, those who supported Uribe's proposals went to the polls and those opposed to the president's agenda stayed home. Question 14 appears to be one of 11 questions that failed to obtain the necessary 25% voter participation. Among the other questions that failed to draw enough voters to make them binding was one that called for reducing the number of seats in Congress from 268 to 218. The rejection of this proposal has temporarily thwarted Uribe's attempts to increase the power of the presidency.
In the Bogota mayoral election, Independent Democratic Pole mayoral candidate Garzon was elected with at least 45% of the vote. Garzon's principal challenger, Juan Lozano, who was politically aligned with Uribe, received 40%. Garzon's victory is the first time a leftist has attained such a prominent office in Colombia, a country where leftist candidates historically have been routinely assassinated.
At the same time, left-wing candidates won the mayoralties of Medellin, Colombia's second-largest city, and Barrancabermeja, the nation's central urban port, where the production and export of oil, Colombia's main economic activity, is concentrated.
Bogota's mayor-elect has been an outspoken critic of Uribe's security policies, which have repeatedly targeted trade unionists and progressive organisations by labelling them "terrorists". Over the past year, Colombia's security forces have conducted numerous mass arrests of union leaders and human rights workers, accusing them of maintaining links to "terrorist" groups, namely the country's left-wing guerrilla movements.
Garzon has also criticised the transformation of Bogota's public spaces undertaken by the city's previous two mayors, claiming that these policies have primarily benefited the middle and upper classes. While parts of Bogota might now look like Versailles, Garzon points out that the majority of the city's residents live in conditions more comparable to Calcutta. Garzon has proposed establishing a food bank for the poor to address the needs of the increasing numbers of residents living in poverty.
The October 25-26 election results clearly illustrated that Uribe is not as popular as opinion polls keep claiming. While minister of defence Marta Lucia Ramirez lamented the referendum defeat by declaring, "All Colombians have lost an opportunity to adopt structural reforms", the results show that Colombians do not view IMF-imposed economic reforms as an "opportunity".
Many Colombians have repeatedly protested against IMF policies and government-sponsored right-wing paramilitary death squads have assassinated scores of those willing to speak out against the neoliberal economic agenda.
Uribe has to decide whether to listen to the people or again display his authoritarian nature by imposing his unpopular policies on Colombia through presidential decrees. With the defeat of the referendum and the election of Garzon as mayor of Bogota — a traditional stepping stone to the presidency — Colombia appears to have taken a turn to the left.
[Abridged from <Http://www.colombiajournal.org>. Additional information from Granma, newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba.]
From Green Left Weekly, November 5, 2003.
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