Minister of Defense vs. Intellectual

Colombians voted sober

Following the results of the first round of presidential elections in Colombia, which took place on Sunday with a high voter turnout, the candidate from the ruling Social Party of National Unity, 58-year-old Juan Manuel Santos (pictured) , became the leader. He was Minister of Defense in the government of current President Alvaro Uribe and enjoys his support. According to preliminary data, Santos received 46.6% of the vote. In second place is his peer, leader of the Green Party Antanas Mockus. 21.5% of voters voted for him. The remaining candidates received from 10 to 4% of the votes. The election did not produce a winner because no one received the required majority of 50% plus one vote.

“Almost none of the experts doubted that in the first round the favorites would not be able to win an absolute majority of votes,” Zbigniew Ivanovsky, a leading researcher at the Institute of Latin America of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Vremya Novostei. According to him, Santos and Mockus were predicted to get about 35% each: “Sociological errors had an impact, since the polls were not conducted in rural areas, where Santos has traditionally always been supported as a candidate from the ruling party. And the extravagant Mockus was supported by the students, to whom he visited on a bicycle, and by the educated part of the electorate.”

To ensure order in the elections, 350 thousand military personnel and police were involved, because an internal armed conflict has been ongoing in Colombia for more than 45 years. Prohibition was introduced and the borders with Venezuela and Ecuador, from where extremists could enter, were closed. These measures are in line with the policies of President Uribe, who during his eight years of rule managed to weaken the position of left-wing extremists from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army, pushing them into inaccessible mountainous areas. “The majority of the population supports Alvaro Uribe’s policy of neutralizing left-wing radical groups,” the VN expert believes. -- Having proclaimed the fight for Colombian socialism, they turned into criminal communities directly related to the drug business. Today voters have the opportunity to live and move around the country in peace, which is why they support the candidate from the ruling party.”

More than a hundred international observers from 30 countries around the world agreed with the opinion of Colombian Defense Minister Gabriel Silva that “the elections were held in an absolutely calm atmosphere, and minor incidents on the periphery did not affect the results.” The second round of elections will take place on June 20, and Messrs. will take part in it. Santos and Mockus. “I think that Juan Manuel Santos will be the winner,” the expert believes. “The votes of voters who supported the Conservatives and the Radical Changes party, which was previously part of a coalition with the ruling party, in the first round will go to him.” Together, the Radical Change Party and the Conservative Party received 16% of the vote.

Juan Manuel Santos is one of the country's political elite. His grandfather's brother, Eduardo Santos, was president of Colombia from 1938 to 1942, and founded the influential newspaper El Tempo. Its editor-in-chief for almost half a century was the father of the current candidate, Enrique Santos Castillo. In the government of Alvaro Uribe, until this year, the candidate's cousin, Francisco Carlos Calderon, was vice president. In his program, Juan Manuel Santos emphasizes the continuation of Uribe's policy, which is based on a focus on further strengthening internal security with the help of a “strong hand.”

His opponent Antanas Mockus comes from a family of Lithuanian emigrants. He is an intellectual who graduated from the French College in the capital of Colombia, Bogotá, and then studied mathematics and philosophy in France. In 1990, he was appointed rector of Columbia University in Bogota. Twice - in 1995-1997 and 2001-2003 - he was mayor of the capital. He is remembered for the fact that he appointed representatives of academic circles, rather than politicians, to leading positions. The main thesis of his election program is the fight against corruption. Mockus suffers from Parkinson's disease, but doctors do not see this as an obstacle to his full political life.

Boris KAIMAKOV