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Quoting unnamed leading political analysts, a wire service dispatch stated that "candidates allied with Alvaro Uribe Vélez, an arch-conservative presidential hopeful who vows to deal with leftist rebels harshly, surged in Sunday's Congressional elections in another sign that Colombia was continuing its rightward shift after the bitter failure of peace talks."
Unfortunately, this a misleading vision of the results of the election, and of Uribe himself, which is already going around the world and is finding its way into the minds of American observers. If Uribe is an "arch-conservative" dissident of the Liberal Party, it could be said then that president Andrés Pastrana is an arch-leftist" member of the Conservative Party. The truth is that neither one or the other can be characterized in those terms-and they were not so characterized by the voters, who rather took into account the demonstrated inefficiency of Pastrana in dealing with the terrorists that have devastated Colombia for almost four decades and the hope the Uribe, who was governor of one of its larger states and mayor of its capital, Medellín, can deal with them if he is elected president, as expected, on May 26.
But the issue is far more complex. In Sunday's election the vote followed two different directions, although somewhat convergent.
After years of frustrating negotiations with the terrorist bandits of the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC)-the pretense that they are anything else has long been dead-a majority of Colombians showed that they want a government that will exercise authority, able to respond vigorously to the guerrilla, but willing to negotiate seriously if it the rebels appeared to be really looking for peace. This was the reason why so many Colombians voted for the candidates partial to Uribe, anticipating the result of May's election.
On the other hand, there were also many that, showing their disappointment with successive governments that have no been able to face the problems generated by economic crises, unemployment and poverty, voted for independent candidates such as Carlos Gaviria, Jesús Piñacué, Jorge Robledo, Gustavo Petro or Antonio Navarro Wolf-the last two former leaders of the M-19 guerrilla movement which made its peace in 1990 with the government and that in their year as lawmakers in the lower chamber of Congress have been efficient examples of political reform.
Sunday there were more of those who saw the urgency of confronting violence, but if the progress is made in this area it can be hoped that there will be more of those who back up a bold social policy. Both sets of voters have one thing in common: they impatiently long for a reform that puts an end to corruption and with the use that politicians make of the state for their own service and that of their friends-instead of putting it to work in resolving the nation's problems-and who want a state with authority, capable of responding firmly to those who are responsible for violence, whoever they are.
"In the midst of such violence and such terrorism, the world asked what turn out to be this election", said Colombian commentator Abdón Espinosa Valderrama, who adds that "the first sensation has been that victory of democracy, civilized and cal, over the arbitrary hurricane of barbarism. Even though abstention has been high, the scene was dominated by the resolve of citizens who came out to deposit their vote, consciously and in a clear act of faith in the future of the fatherland. The prospects were certainly not good, but more was achieved by the authorities' preparations and the firm will of Colombians. People abroad may have been surprised that a country presumed to be going up in flames could have been the protagonist of such a contest of republican authenticity, transparency and dignity."
This is a fair evaluation of what this election was in Colombia. Given its predicament, it couldn't have done any better.
Claudio Campuzano (claudio-campuzano@hotmail.com) is U.S, correspondent for the Latin American newsweekly Tiempos del Mundo and editorial page editor of the New York daily Noticias del Mundo. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com