Colombian Regional and Local Elections - October 25, 2015

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The election which has captured most of my interest, time and blogging pursuits for the last few months is finally around the corner! This Sunday, there are regional and local elections throughout Colombia - the first elections since 2014, the last elections (save by-elections) until 2018.

So what's up for election this Sunday?
-All 32 departments electing their governors and departmental assemblies, the former by FPTP for a single 4-year term with no consecutive reelection and the latter by the same PR-ish complex and personalistic system used for congressional elections.

-About 1,100 municipalities electing their mayors and councils. Same kind of electoral systems and laws as for departments. Bigger municipalities are divided into comunas (urban) and/or corregimientos municipales (rural), which each have their own elected 'local administrative board' or JAL. It's somewhat interesting (for me, which means nobody else should give a crap) that some parts of Colombia (ie the really remote jungle in the boonies, and then the island of San Andrés) are not part of a municipality, so they don't vote.

-Bogotá 'capital district', with its own mayor (styled, in this case, alcalde mayor or something like lord mayor/senior mayor), council (larger than all other municipal councils, at 45 seats) and 20 localidades (=comunas, everywhere else) with their own JAL (and a local mayor, appointed by the big mayor, on a list submitted by the JAL). This is the only election the foreigners who watch this election (all 3 of them) will care/know about, and this is very unfortunate but makes sense since mayor of Bogotá is said to be the 2nd most important elected office after president. Confusingly, Bogotá is capital of the department of Cundinamarca, but for all intents and purposes Bogotá is not part of Cundinamarca nor do its residents vote to elect Cundinamarca's governor.

You may find that some other cities - like Cartagena and Barranquilla - are also known as 'districts' with 'district councils' and the like instead of municipal councils but this is meaningless nonsense done by congressmen with too much times on their hand. On the topic of similar nonsense, Colombia also has 20ish organized 'metropolitan areas' but only 6 of them are legally recognized.

Departments actually have relatively few powers besides general 'coordination' between municipalities and limited service delivery in cases where the municipality is unable to do so by itself. In most cases, the municipality is the level with the most powers including important ones over education, public utilities, public transit, culture and the environment. Both levels are still quite dependent on central transfers (SGP), most of which are strictly earmarked, although municipalities do get about 30% of their revenues from own sources including property taxes, a kind of business tax and departments do get about a quarter of theirs from royalties (which since 2013 are more evenly spread).

Because it's somewhat relevant here, I should point out that mayors can be recalled from office, but requirements for a recall are so absurdly high and ridiculously anal (if anybody cares I can explain) that it's literally never been successful. On the other hand, mayors - like other politicos - can and often are removed from office and banned from public office by the Procuraduría General ('inspector general' is my English translation, but there are plenty of others), which is not to be confused with the Fiscalía General (attorney general/state prosecutor), which is basically a body in charge of protecting human rights and compliance with the constitution. Technically, the Procuraduría should only removed politicians from office for only the 'gravest' offences, but the current inspector general, Alejandro Ordóñez, a far-right Catholic traditionalist loon (he who thinks that the biggest problem facing Colombia today are PDAs in schools), has been very very trigger-happy and his office's understanding of the word 'grave' is extremely liberal. It also doesn't help that Ordóñez thinks that left-wingers should not be allowed to hold office.

Some of the current issues in Colombia today:

• Near historic levels of political polarization between the government, its supporters and the presidency on the one hand and former president-now senator Álvaro Uribe. Both sides engaging in silly politicking, although Uribe is being Uribe which means heavy use of excessive hyperbole
• Continuing peace dialogues in Havana with the FARC, which have been an emotional roller coaster in 2015 - from the FARC basically going back to war with the deaths of 11 soldiers in April and the army dropping a few bombs on them to the FARC announcing a unilateral indefinite ceasefire back in July (still going strong, to everybody's surprise) to the two teams reaching an historic deal on transitional justice last month, culminating with Santos and FARC leader Timochenko shaking hands and the announcement of March 23, 2016 as the final date for the signature of a peace agreement. Which is very, very important with historic ramifications for Colombia, regardless of your views
• The approval of a major constitutional reform this summer which I discussed with nobody giving a crap at the time.
• A border/humanitarian/diplomatic crisis with Venezuela
• Politicians being even sillier and grubbier than usual
• Politicians already thinking about who's going to run in 2018

Races to watch (hopefully I will profile them all, even if some I may cover after Sunday)
-Mayor of Bogotá DC
-Mayor of Medellín and Governor of Antioquia
-Mayor of Cali and Governor of the Valle
-Mayor of Barranquilla
-Mayor of Bucaramanga and Governor of Santander
-Mayor of Cartagena and Governor of Bolívar
-Governors of La Guajira, Sucre, Cauca, Cundinamarca
-Mayor of Manizales

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is very interesting! A few questions:
- How is the Procuraduría General appointed? Is it a cabinet office under the President's control or is it more autonomous? Can it just remove any politician without any oversight, or are there limits regarding who and how?
- How popular is Santos right now? Did the upcoming peace with the FARC affect his approvals?
- A run-up of the major parties/factions would be very helpful.

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This is very interesting! A few questions:
- How is the Procuraduría General appointed? Is it a cabinet office under the President's control or is it more autonomous? Can it just remove any politician without any oversight, or are there limits regarding who and how?

The Procuraduría General is part of the Ministerio Público, which is considered an 'órgano de control' (control organism) and is thus independent of political power, at least in theory. He is elected by the Senate for four years (since this year he cannot be reelected) from a list made up of candidates from the President, the Supreme Court and the Council of State. The decisions made can be appealed in several ways to many courts, as I'll explain in the case of the most famous clusterfark of them all - Gustavo Petro.

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If polls are to be trusted (and I'm not sure they are), then Santos' approvals collapsed from about 45-50% (where he had been for quite some time pre and post-reelection) to below 30% after the April 2015 FARC attack which killed 11 soldiers in the Cauca, which caused a bunch of people to lose faith in the peace process and back a "let's just bomb them all" solution, but the one post-handshake poll suggests that his approval might have bounced back up to about 45% as optimism, if extremely cautious, about the talks have increased. But at the same time, Uribe's popularity is still going strong, at about 60% (which makes him - by far - the most popular Colombian politician in Colombia; the most popular politician in Colombia being, of course, Barack Obama ) and his more diehard supporters genuinely believe him when he says that Santos should be in jail and that he's going to surrender Colombia to the guerrillas/Chávez (somehow)/the Castros.

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Well it's very complicated and actually not all that useful since, especially in the case of these elections, it's about individuals who play their own games with or without parties. But regardless, being extremely simplistic about this whole affair -

You have a 'Unidad Nacional' coalition which reelected Santos in 2014 and controls pluralities in both houses, and they're fine to support the most important legislative agenda items of the government but in the end they all have their own objectives in mind and they're all playing their own game for 2018. You have within this coalition:
-The 'Partido de la U' (formally Partido Social de la Unidad Nacional, but literally nobody calls it that), which was founded in 2005 by Santos and a few others (most of them ex-Liberals, like Santos) to support Uribe - this being, of course, the time when Santos decided to become a uribista because Uribe was going to be reelected in 2006 - and in the foolish hopes of creating some kind of big tent party behind Uribe (but Uribe - unlike his leftist nemeses on the continent - dislikes single parties of power). Long story short, it became (more or less) the biggest party in Congress in 2006 and remained so in 2010 and 2014. In 2010, it was Santos' party to win the presidency with Uribe's blessing and between 2011 and 2012, you had the very hilarious situation where the president and the de facto leader of the opposition were in the same party with Uribe trying to capture the U and Santos managing to retain control of the U (because he had the marmalade - Colombia's far superior word for pork). When the government retained control of the U, Santos' friends began furiously rewriting the party's history, claiming that Uribe opposed its creation in 2005 (which is false) and that the U somehow didn't really stand for Uribe but rather 'Unidad' Now it is an important party in the governing coalition but its bench for 2018 is not very big or impressive and its electoral strategy for 2015 appears fairly mediocre. It has, of course, no real ideology.
-The Liberal Party, one of the two traditional parties which dates back to the 19th century and has a very complex and complicated history, and is also ridiculously factionalized (has been so for a long long time). Uribe actually was a Liberal politician and won the presidency as a Liberal dissident in 2002, and Santos and his family (one of the most important in 20th century Colombia) are Liberals. But the Liberal leadership opposed Uribe (although many Liberals didn't, which led to the creation of many parties of dissident Liberals, thankfully most of them are now in jail for being criminals), but joined Santos' coalition with the 2010 runoff and have become an important player in the government, the cabinet, the president's inner circle, the peace talks and were the most helpful in Santos' 2014 reelection. Their bench for 2018 has some depth and several interesting names, and they're very much playing the long game this year planning for 2018, even if that means forming unholy alliances. It has, of course, no real ideology.
-The Cambio Radical, which doesn't offer much 'change' and certainly not anything 'radical', was founded in the late 1990s and is now (since 2003 or so) the party of current VP Germán Vargas Lleras who is very much running for president in 2018. Many of its members, like Vargas Lleras, came from a Liberal faction known as 'New Liberalism', a reformist/anti-corruption/anti-cartels group led by Luis Carlos Galán, who was assassinated in 1989 by Pablo Escobar and Galán's enemies in the Liberal Party likely with the cooperation of certain elements of the DAS (Colombia's FBI until it was dissolved by Santos in 2011 for being incredibly corrupt). For example, one of Galán's son is a CR senator and the son of Rodrigo Lara (justice minister assassinated by Escobar in 1984) is a CR representative. Vargas Lleras was senator from 1998 to 2010 and was a Uribe ally - before Santos, which led to the former disliking the latter for some year - until Vargas Lleras, who had his own political ambitions, refused to support Uribe's unsuccessful attempts to run for a third term in 2010, which caused Uribe to throw a hissy fit and hate Vargas Lleras. As VP since 2014, he is in charge of the government's huge infrastructure/highways project, and has been strangely silent about the peace talks. He is running for president in 2018 and is using 2015 to build a nationwide machine with many governors and mayors, and he's willing to go to whatever lengths necessary to do so, even if it means allying with objectively disreputable people.

-The Conservative Party, the other of the two traditional parties from the 19th century which also have a very complicated and complex past and is also quite factionalized. They supported Uribe from 2002 to 2010, included a number of hardcore uribistas (like Andrés Felipe Arias, who was actually Uribe's real preference in 2010, until he lost the primaries) and many others who were just with him for the road and had their own agenda. After 2010, they kind of supported Santos, but were quite distressed with the Uribe/Santos split since many of them still liked Uribe but also loved being in government and thus having digs on the marmalade. That's basically where they've been since then, although most of their congresspeople are pro-government if only because they're power-hungry and want money. In 2014 the Conservatives ran their own candidate, Marta Lucía Ramírez, who is probably running in 2018, and she did quite well despite most Conservative congresspeople basically supporting Santos in the first round. They are also divided in these elections without a central unifying strategy. Their current views can be summarized to:


-The Centro Democrático is Uribe's party and the largest opposition party, founded before the 2014 elections, which were a success for them. Uribe is the father/spiritual leader/lead attack-dog/de facto boss of the party, which is entirely about him, down to the logo and the slogan. It's more ideological than most, although most of their ideology is excessive hyperbole and Uribe's huge martyr complex (also filled with hypocrisy). I can deconstruct a bit of their beliefs if people are interested, but that's another matter. Their strategy this year is to build a local/regional base and win as many big offices as possible.

-The Polo Democrático Alternativo is the main left-wing party, built up in stages since 2002, and has had mixed electoral successes since then. The reasons for the comparative weakness of the left in Colombia compared to other countries are plenty, long, complicated and take lots of time to explain. As for the Polo specifically, a proximate cause is the division of the party and their knack for getting bogged down in internal squabbles (>leftists); while in Bogotá, where the Polo was in power itself for two term from 2003 to 2011, being corrupt hasn't helped and means that about half of the city hates them. Their strategy for 2015 is focused on Bogotá mostly, and looking forward to 2018 they have one candidate of their own but other non-Polo lefties also obviously interested (ie Petro).

-The Green Alliance is a messy centre-left party, which comes from a Green party founded in 2009 by three former mayors of Bogotá (who have since mostly gone their own ways, with or more often without the party), most famously Mockus who reached the runoff in 2010 against Santos. Fairly clean, they do include a few grubby corrupt politicians, who coexist with some very good legislators (like senator Claudia López). Their electoral prowess depends very heavily on the notoriety and strength of their candidates, so it's always messy on that front. They are the green 'alliance' since 2013 since they allied, briefly, with Bogotá mayor Gustavo Petro's folks (the Progressives Movement) but that collapsed in early 2014, but many ex-Petro people remain Greens while Petro has tried to resuscitate his own movement.

This is excluding some other parties and movement, but I think it's a decent summary or attempt at one.

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BOGOTÁ (MAYOR)

With a population of 7.8 million, Bogotá is the biggest city in Colombia and one of the biggest capitals in South America. It is, for Colombia, fairly wealthy (10% poverty vs 29% nationally), has the strongest economy (9% unemployment, 4th lowest of 23 cities) and actually quite pacified (17/100,000 homicide rate). But its residents are very pessimistic about their city - civic pride of sorts is barely at 50%, only 27% say the city is on the right track, 44% are satisfied with life there, they dislike the public transit and feel unsafe in the city because criminality has increased. The city's positive feelings have been on a downwards trend since 2007 because the last 2 mayors have been unpopular.

Little in the way of a clear ideological direction in elections, although the left is stronger here but the right is quite strong too; in local politics it has shunned major traditional parties and likes independents. Past mayors have included Antanas Mockus (1994-1997, 2000-2003), the awesomely crazy but quite successful oddball; Enrique Peñalosa (1998-2000), the visionary independent who loves big projects and urban planning but is viewed with suspicion by the left and others; Lucho Garzón (2003-2007), the first leftist mayor of the capital with successful anti-poverty/social inclusion programs; Samuel Moreno (2007-2011), the second leftist mayor who was very corrupt (basically a Quebec municipal politician) and removed from office for being corrupt and now Gustavo Petro (2011-2015).

Petro came to office with an ambitious left-wing platform, certain to displease certain sectors of the capital. Among his social policies, Petro has delivered free water supply to the two lowest socioeconomic strati (1 and 2, out of 6 strata), expanded the preventive health program to cover over 1 million families, increased support for residents living in poverty (but also to vulnerable seniors, children, drug addicts), created new spaces in kindergartens, implemented public transit subsidies for low-income residents (but also seniors and some students), adopted policies promoting tolerance and support for LGBT (especially those victims of violence) and also adopted measures against animal cruelty. In implementing some of these policies, Petro made unpopular and sometimes miscalculated decisions. Petro's administration inaugurated the third phase of the TransMilenio and the roll-out of an integrated public transit system (SITP), and like any new public transit roll-out, it faced several problems and the government was the target of much anger and criticisms. The city has also moved forward with plans for the metro. Petro's disapproval rating increased to over 65% not long after taking office.

It was the decision, taken in 2012, to change an archaic trash collection model by entrusting it to a municipal company (in compliance of a 2011 sentence of the Constitutional Court regarding trash collection workers' rights) which generated a major crisis and controversies. The implementation of the new model, in December 2012, was a disaster - for three days, over 10,000 tons of garbage were not collected and the government was compelled to call on private operators to manage about 35% of the trash collection. The importation of new trash compactors from the US was delayed, other compactors were unfit for service and the government needed to spend millions of pesos on maintenance contracts - all causing major headaches and financial loses. In the face of Petro's unpopular decisions, mismanaged policies and the trash debacle, Petro's opponents on the right began circulating a recall petition, which the National Registrar certified in April 2013. However, the municipal government successfully obtained an injunction from an administrative tribunal, which was in turn challenged by the National Registrar and eventually overturned by the Council of State in December 2013.

On December 9, 2013, a delegate prosecutor of the Procuraduría dismissed Petro from office and banned him from holding political offices for 15 years because of irregularities in the change of trash collection models - which was ruled to constitute serious criminal intent. In January 2014, the Inspector General, Alejandro Ordóñez - who is an ultra-conservative traditionalist who has made little secret that he dislikes all left-wing politicians - upheld and confirmed the first instance decision. Petro claimed that he was the victim of a political witch-hunt and called Ordóñez a fascist; it is true that the grounds for Petro's dismissals were quite flimsy and an obvious overreaction by Ordóñez, which gives solid ground to claims that Petro was dismissed for being a left-winger. The next day, however, an administrative tribunal ordered the temporary suspension of the effects of the Procuraduría's decision while it took a decision on the issue. In March 14, 2014, the Superior Council of the Judiciary revoked the suspension ordered by the administrative tribunal and, four days later, the Council of State rejected tutelas received against the dismissal. That same day, however, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IAHCR), which Petro had called upon after the first instance's decision in 2013, granted Petro an injunction and ordered the immediate suspension of the dismissal. Notwithstanding that, the next day, President Santos - who was playing a miscalculated political game (an attempt to seduce uribistas and conservatives by complying with Ordóñez) - rejected the injunction and gave effect to the dismissal, appointing Rafael Pardo as caretaker mayor. On April 22, the Superior Court of Bogotá revoked the dismissal and ordered Petro's immediate return as mayor, acting on a tutela ordering the president to comply with the IAHCR's ruling. Santos, who by now had completely changed his political strategy, respected the decision and restored Petro to office. The plans to hold a recall referendum have also since died. As for Santos, his bizarre political game paid off - two weeks before the presidential first round, Petro endorsed Santos' reelection by the first round, in support of the Havana dialogues.

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BOGOTÁ (MAYOR) - CANDIDATES

Clara López (Polo+UP+MAIS; unofficial support of Progresistas): former presidential candidate for the Polo (2014, 20% in Bogotá), former interim mayor (2011). 'Elitist' background, niece of Liberal president Alfonso López Michelsen (1974-1978) and long story in politics (in the 1980s, but took a 'hiatus' in the 90s). Candidate of the left, seeking a fourth mandate for the left in the country's capital, a task complicated by the unpopularity of the last two mayors (notably Samuel Moreno, with whom she was closely allied and served as his #2) and herself being dogged by questions of guilt by association with Moreno and the corruption which brought him down (long story short, basically the same thing as the stuff which brought down Tremblay in Montreal). After some time, she managed to bring much of the left behind her - María Mercedes Maldonado, the candidate of Petro's Progressives dropped out because she had failed to break through and united with López; some Greens joined her after their candidate dropped out for the same reasons. She also has the support of most trade unions, including the biggest confederation, and some Liberal dissidents.

Rafael Pardo (Liberal+U): former defence minister (1991-1994), former senator (2002-2006), 2010 Liberal presidential candidate, former labour minister (2011-2014). Pardo is an old-timer in politics and an accomplished politician, although not a very good campaigner. He is a former uribista, from 2002 to about 2005, officially breaking because of his disagreements with the government's paramilitary demobilization process and the justice and peace law at the time (unofficially because he resented Santos' rapid accession in uribista circles despite being a late-comer to the game). His 2010 presidential candidacy was an epic fail (4.4%) but he led the Liberal Party into Santos' new coalition, and himself became labour minister in 2011, another Santos decision which really pissed off Uribe. Pardo's candidacy focuses on issues similar to the current objectives of the national government: a more equitable society, alleviating inequalities with greater opportunities for all, but also pays attention to local concerns about security (unlike, arguably, López who said that security was improving) with a proposal to create an unarmed civil guard of 5,000 people to sanction minor infractions. He presents himself as a candidate with the leadership and experience to solve the city's problems, secure the city and work with the people. Despite lower name recognition than his rivals at the beginning, he became a viable candidate and is always benefited by the fact that he was the least polarizing of the main candidates (the least number of people saying that they'd never vote for him). But he is also hurt by his close ties to Santos (not very popular) and his identification with the major political parties (not a good recipe in Bogotá). Shares trade union support with Clara, also has the support of the Christian evangelicals in MIRA.

Enrique Peñalosa (independent+CR): the frontrunner, according to polls. former mayor (1997-2000), failed mayoral candidate (1991, 1994, 2007, 2011), 2014 Green presidential candidate. The visionary, if Pharaonic and autocratic, city planner who loves big projects, parks, bike lanes, public spaces, libraries and created the TransMilenio (the city's bus rapid transit system, a model for other BRT systems), but also concerned by social inclusion (but from a free market capitalist, not socialist, viewpoint) and law-and-order tendencies. Many of the left really dislike him, especially since his last failed mayoral candidacy (in 2011), he accepted Uribe and the U's endorsement, which makes many think he's a secret uribista and secretly anti-peace (not 100% accurate, mind you). Running as an independent, who got on the ballot with signatures, but obtained CR's support in July, something which helps both VargasLleras4Prez2018 and Peñalosa4Mayor2015. Also backed by most Conservatives, those behind Marta Lucía Ramírez who many thought would run herself. Also backed by Mockus; the two men have a weird on-and-off thing on, since Mockus tried to sink Peñalosa in 2011 after he got Uribe's endorsement and ended up leaving the Green Party as a result of that. A platform focusing heavily on change, the most anti-Petro of the top 3 candidates; still heavy on public works and big ideas, but also serious on education and healthcare problems.

Francisco 'Pacho' Santos (CD): former vice president (2002-2010). Uribe's former VP, also the cousin of President JM Santos (so both share the very elitist background of their family). A journalists in the 80s (for El Tiempo, the biggest newspaper in the country, owned by the Santos family until recently), he was one of the 'elite figures' kidnapped by Escobar's henchmen in 1990 and was their hostage for 8 months. Pacho was the Uribe government's bridge to international human rights NGOs, very critical of Uribe, because of Pacho's activism in the late 1990s for human rights and against kidnappings. He was never an inner circle member of the government, but was a loyal soldier. After 2010, he returned to journalism and became very very anti-Santos, basically saying that Santos is a vile traitor. Failed to get the CD's nomination in 2014. A very law-and-order/'urban democratic security' platform, like an idea to create civic police force made up of retired police and military to exercise 'territorial control' in parks and TransMilenio stations. His campaign is basically "hai guys i'm uribe's candidate, u like him rite? vote 4 me plz kthxbye", but not very successful since people who hate leftists like him are voting Peñalosa as the 'useful choice' and his campaign has failed to break through.

The three other candidates are Ricardo Arias, a former congressman and evangelical Christian leader from the Quindío; Daniel Raisbeck, a libertarian and Alex Vernot, vaguely leftist.

The poll which headlined this week's Semana magazine:



Another pollster, from 2 days ago:
Peñalosa 30%
Pardo 24%
López 19%
Pacho 11%

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For those interested, there's a test available online to choose your candidates in 4 cities - Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Manizales (): http://votomovil.co/bogota/

I can provide translations and/or backgrounds if people care.

[Velasco]

F http://votomovil.co/bogota/

I got Clara López 85%, Rafael Pardo 55%, Enrique Peñalosa 48%, Pacho Santos 41%

Thank you very much for the summary. I have no time for elections now.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is all really fascinating. Thanks for this summary.

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I may try to talk about Medellín/Antioquia before tomorrow. In any case, La Silla Caribe has put together a brief guide to the main races in the Caribbean departments tomorrow - these are very important and also very close races (in some cases): http://lasillavacia.com/historia/asi-llega-el-caribe-las-regionales-de-manana-52066

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The only substantial numbers come from Bogota, with 19.6% reporting:

Pardo 28%
Penalosa 27.7%
Clara 22.1%
Pacho 12.2%

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Now 32.7% reporting in the capital:

Penalosa 209.274
Pardo 197.659
Clara 145.710
Pacho 83.901

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61.2% in Bogota:

Penalosa 31.5% (+43,988)
Pardo 28.6%
Clara 19.3%
Pacho 12.1%

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Bogota - Penalosa wins: 73% reporting

Penalosa 32.2%
Pardo 28.6%
Clara 18.8%
Pacho 12.1%

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Medellin - 45.6% reporting

Gutierrez (Creemos) 35.7%
Velez Uribe (CD) 33.4%
Jaime Rico (U-CR-Con) 16.6%
Salazar (Grn-ASI) 5.6%

Cali - 27.2% reporting

Armitage (ind) 39.9%
Ortiz (Lib) 23.5%
Garzon (U) 20.4%

Barranquilla - 23.5% reporting

Char (CR) 73.3%
other dude 17%

Manizales - 67.8% reporting

Octavio Cardona (Lib) 29.1%
Luis Roberto (U-CR-Con) 25.8%
Adriana Gutierrez (CD) 25%
Acebedo (Grn) 12%

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Anybody care?

Medellin: surprise narrow victory for independent candidate Federico Gutierrez, supported by most of fajardismo (a local centrist-ish/anti-establishment progressive movement which has governed the city since 2003), with 35.7% against former senator Vélez Uribe, the CD candidate, who now has 34.2%. Gabriel Jaime Rico, candidate of the Unidad Nacional, has 16.3% and former mayor Alonso Salzar, also from fajardismo, has only 5.5%. 89% reporting.

Cali: atypical businessman Mauricio Armitage (independent) elected with 39.5% against 24.4% for the Liberal Party's Roberto Ortiz and a terrible 21.1% for former VP Angelino Garzon (U). 67% elected.

Bucaramanga: anti-establishment candidate Rodolfo Hernandez clings to a narrow lead with 28.9% against 27.1% for the candidate of the Liberal Party (the incumbent governing party) and 20.1% for the candidate of the U, backed by the horrendous Aguilar clan.

Barranquilla: Alex Char, as expected, elected in a huge landslide with 73.5%. He's the boss of the department's most powerful political clan.

Antioquia/governor: controversial former Medellin mayor Luis Perez (Lib-CR) seems safe, with 37.3% against 30.7% for the CD guy and only 20.2% for fajardismo's candidate.

Valle/governor: controversial and corrupt political boss Dilian Francisca Toro (U) has a narrow lead with 32.9% against 26.7% for Christian Garces, the CD candidate and something of a late anti-corruption candidate. 56.5% reporting, but Toro seems likely to win - a lot of votes still left to count in Buenaventura, where Garces is doing very very poorly (not surprisingly).

Cundinamarca/governor: the candidate of the Unidad Nacional has won, with 53.2% against 35% for Nancy Gutierrez, the Conservative/CD candidate.

Santander/governor: corrupt Liberal candidate Didier Tavera likely to win here, with 31.6% against 23.2% for an anti-establishment candidate.

Sucre/governor: corrupt and distasteful Edgar Martinez in the lead, narrowly, with 49.6% against 43.2% for Milene Jarava, the wife of the very corrupt and all-around sketchy guy Yahir Acuna. 69% reporting.

La Guajira/governor: corrupt and very distasteful Oneida Pinto (CR), widely believed to be the candidate of former governor Kiko Gomez (convicted murderer) has won, with 64.6% right now and 55.8% reporting.

[Famous Mortimer]

Looks like pro-Santos candidates did better in at than governors' races than the mayors' races. Is Santos more popular among rural people and less so among urban?

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Looks like pro-Santos candidates did better in at than governors' races than the mayors' races. Is Santos more popular among rural people and less so among urban?

Well, the tellies are saying that the government parties are coming out with 26 out of 32 departments, but that doesn't mean much. What mattered in these elections are candidates and local factors. Santos was fairly absent from these elections (as he is legally supposed to be) and in general the Unidad Nacional is a joke, since Vargas Lleras doesn't care about the government anymore and is already preparing for his 2018 candidacy. The cases where the three governing parties supported a single candidate were very few; for example, in the Caribbean departments, the fight was almost always between different 'governing parties', like CR vs the U.

In the cities, voters have always preferred independent/'civic' candidates (or the left, in Bogota, which has suffered a crushing defeat tonight) over traditional party candidates and this has been the case in the three major cities for a decade or so already, so it's nothing new. Now it seems to also be the case in Bucaramanga, which isn't surprising considering that it's a wealthy and educated city in a department long ruled by corrupt clans. In the departments, the government parties had stronger candidates in general - obviously in Antioquia and Valle, where they had heavyweights against not very well known candidates for the other movements.

So in short it has very little to do with Santos or the government's popularity.

[platypeanArchcow]

Cali: atypical businessman Mauricio Armitage (independent) elected

What is his deal?  I know a bit about Bogotá and Medellín politics but nothing about Cali.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Thanks Hash!

What are the sorta demographics of the Bogota race? Not in detail, but who do the rich, poor, bobos, old, young, ethnic minorities (?) vote for?