Colombian congressional and presidential elections - March 13/May 29/June 19, 2022

[Sir John Johns]

Bad news for Gustavo Petro coming from Honduras:

https://twitter.com/thelma_mejia/status/1529643725659545603

Official statement of the [Honduran] Migrations signaling the detention of former senator Piedad Córdoba for carrying undeclared $68,000. This is huge

Statement of the Honduran National Institute for Migration:

The National Institute for Migration (INM) informs to the national and international community that the senator from Colombia, the citizen Piedad Córdoba has been temporarily detained for investigation for the carrying of about US $68,000 that weren’t declared and that according what has been stated are belonging to a Colombian businessman residing in the city of Tegucigalpa who is summoned by the prosecutor of the state of Honduras to make a deposition and for the corresponding process of law to continue.

Hashemite already mentioned the controversies over Córdoba (who has since been elected a senator) in last February:

Explosive revelations about Piedad Córdoba (8th on the Pacto closed list for Senate) which are in good part a throwback to the 2008 Raúl Reyes FARC computer files. One of her former advisers said she manipulated the release of FARC hostages to score political points for her and Chávez in 2007, and allegedly even advised the FARC to delay Ingrid Betancourt's release because of her value as a hostage. She is also accused of having acted as an agent of the Chávez government, and tied to Alex Saab, the corrupt businessman who did business with Venezuela until he was arrested in 2020. Serious stuff which makes the Pacto visibly uncomfortable, just like the right flinches when Char's name is brought up.

I don’t know much about Córdoba except for one episode, when in last January, information was delivered to the Colombian government by an Ecuadorian parliamentary delegation led by Fernando Villavicencio (investigative journalist turn politician who had many problems under Correa, being even forced to seek refuge with an Amazon indigenous community) about a 2013 private plane trip Córdoba allegedly made from Quito to Bogotá in the company of Alex Saab. On this occasion, the Ecuadorian embassy in Colombia publicly issued a protestation over comments deemed as insulting made by Córdoba on a Quito radio (she notably labeled Villavicencio as ‘a sewer rat’ and strongly hinted Ecuador isn’t a sovereign country and doesn’t defend its sovereignty).

I guess uribismo will now double down on accusations of ‘castrochavismo’ against Petro even if, as I understand, the left-wing candidate has sidelined the controversial senator.


Also, the same polling institute that was the only one to predict a victory of Kast in the 2021 Chilean presidential runoff and a victory of Le Pen in the 2022 French presidential runoff, has come with a new shocking poll:

https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1527790445077610497

[Sir John Johns]

16.4% reported

Petro 41.5%
Rodolfo 27.9%
Fico 23.7%
Fajardo 3.6%

Fico is only leading in Antioquia and expats

[Sir John Johns]

There is also La Puntilla (29,803 inhabitants in 2010, much more since as there were over 20,000 votes cast there in the 2021 elections), a ‘satellite city’ lying on the coast in Samborondón canton, in the periphery of Guayaquil (Ecuador).

Results of the last presidential election there were:

First round

Guillermo Lasso (CREO, conservative) 87.1%
Andrés Arauz (UNES, Correa’s coalition) 5.7%
Xavier Hervas (ID, social liberal) 2.2%
Guillermo Celi (SUMA, conservative) 1.6%
Yaku Pérez (Pachakutik, indigenous) 1.2%

Second round

Guillermo Lasso 92.3%
Andrés Arauz 7.7%

It was Lasso’s best parish in both rounds.

A quick research on Google Maps’ satellite photos and you understand what kind of people is living in La Puntilla:







There are private swimming pools and tennis courts just absolutely everywhere.

Gated communities have been built in La Puntilla since the 1980s to house super-wealthy families fleeing neighboring Guayaquil and some of the richest Ecuadorian people are living (or used to live there) from banana tycoon Álvaro Noboa to late former presidents León Febres-Cordero and Gustavo Noboa as well as several bigwigs of the Citizen Revolution (belonging, unsurprisingly, to the pro-business wing): Alexis Mera, Camilo Samán, Juan Carlos Casinelli and even Correa’s own sister, Pierina.

I don’t know if something similar (in the sense of so much caricatural) exists in other South American countries. Note that Samborondón canton is made up of two other parishes, one of them (Tarifa), having in 2010 (year of the latest census) a large majority of inhabitants not having running water at home, in a blatant illustration of the obscene economic inequalities existing in Ecuador.