The above is of course related to my disappointment after the recent Colombian presidential elections, which I have discussed before here, then here, and more recently, here. Disappointment comes from many different sources, but here I'd like to discuss only a few of them. As you probably know, elections were supposed to be a close competition between Antanas Mockus (the decent one), and Juan Manuel Santos (the despicable one). My first disappointment as a Mockus supporter was to see that Santos won with a huge difference (47% vs 21%, almost 7 million votes against little more than 3 million votes). While a Santos' victory in the first round was expected, such a difference shocked everyone. Moreover, Santos won in every state of the country but one, and also in the three main cities (Bogotá, Cali, Medellín) where Mockus was supposed to be fairly strong.
A second source of disappointment was to realize that, once again, youngsters didn't go to vote. As I had mentioned here, people having the chance of voting for the first time would make a difference. There was a lot of hope on these kids, as they were supposed to support Mockus unconditionally. Well, it seems that they were too lazy to go to vote on a Sunday and now, partially because of them, the country will be fucked up for at least four more years. Once again, trusting the judgment of the so-called "new generations" has proven to be an idiotic ideal.
The third disappointment was Mockus himself reacting to the results. We already knew that he isn't that good at speeches and public appearances. But the acceptance speech that he gave just after the results were revealed was absolutely disastrous, terrible, awful. For one, I couldn't watch it complete: I felt so disappointed to see Mockus unable to cheer up more than three million people who had voted for him. The paused style of Mockus when speaking, and his extremely pedagogic way of understanding public demonstrations, ruined the speech. I remember thinking "Mockus is not Obama", as Obama is quite clever at conveying the right emotional message, even if shallow and ephemeral, always at the right moment. What it was needed after a massive disappointment was a concrete, determined promise of fighting until the end for victory; an urgent call, to every single Colombian (and especially to those who didn't vote for him), to choose decency over traditional corruption.
Of course, since Santos didn't manage to obtain more than 50% of the votes, there will be a second round elections (aka ballotage). To me it is clear that Mockus holds absolutely no chance in that round, especially because all other candidates but one, explicitly or implicitly, have adhered to Santos' campaign. So Santos will win, most likely with a larger difference. It is expected that less people will go to vote on June 20, either because they consider the elections are already settled (and hence their vote would make no difference) or because they think that the World Cup matches that day will be far more interesting (both Italy and Brasil play that day). From this point of view, it would be already "good" if Mockus manages to obtain the same votes he got in the first round. In fact, I would be extremely surprised if Mockus actually gets more votes. Sigh.
You might ask now, what is next for Colombia? In my view, these elections were about a fundamental question: do we want a shift towards a government based on decency, education, and social responsibility, or do we keep a government aiming at continuing with corruption, sustained war, and inequalities? As John McCain said in his concession speech, "the people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly." It is discouraging to realize that three million of decent people are the minority in Colombia. I hope Mockus' party is able to survive the second round with dignitiy, and that it articulates a proper opposition party right after the elections. Sadly, none of the two can be taken by granted.
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