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Colombia Left Suffers Election Defeat.

Colombia's left wing party the The Democratic Alternative Pole, or the Polo as it is popularly known

suffered a serious setback in Sunday's municipal and regional elections !t lost control of theemblematic city of "ogot# which it first won eight years ago "ack then the election was such a boost

to their morale that they even thought they might derail $ribe's re%election in &( )ow however, on

Sunday it was relegated into seventh place capturing *ust +- of the vote slightly behind the rightwing religious party .!/A and *ust ahead of the P!), a party which has been linked to Colombia's

paramilitaries

The victor in the elections was 0ustavo Petro, last year's presidential candidate for the Polo gaining

1&- of the poll and over 2, votes 3e split from the Polo earlier this year and set up a new

political formation called Progresistas At the time of the split he claimed there were irreconcilableideological differences 3e caused great anger within the ranks of the party when he stated he was

seeking a strategic alliance with the Colombian bourgeoisie and gave guarantees to $ribe that he would

not be e4tradited to the !nternational Criminal Court and also seemed to promise that he would not be

prosecuted in Colombia assuring the then president that 5$ribe and $ribismo are under no threat fromme6 Despite the ideological differences, Petro's main problem with the Polo was that he was not in

command, a trait that has characterised his political career

3e is a charismatic figure and is instantly recognisable on national television, unlike Aurelio Su#re7,

his contender in the Polo !n his last outing as Senator he obtained one of the highest votes in the entire

country across all political parties 3e has an immense personal political draw that has served himwell, however, his victory is due to other factors Samuel .oreno, the mayor of "ogot# was forced out

of office due to corruption scandals involving public contracts for the building of the city's rapid

transport system 8aime Dussain the president of the Polo admitted that the scandals had affected the

Polo's vote and that 5perhaps our sluggish and tardy response to the scandals didn't help6 The Polohad initially been very defensive and took its time in e4pelling .oreno from the party

The loss is significant9 the .ayor of "ogot# is considered the second most important elected post in thecountry after the Presidency Any party that controls "ogot#, as the Polo knows from e4perience, has a

huge launching pad for presidential elections )ow it will be the Progresistas who will vie for power

in &+ Aurelio Suare7, the defeated candidate has been scathing in his attacks on Petro, claiming thatthe Progresistas are a right wing formation and that its programme is far removed from that of the Polo

That may be so, however, the previous two Polo administrations did not stand out as being particularly

left wing in their policies or in their management :ucho 0ar7on and .oreno, both implementedprogrammes and policies that were seen as a continuation of the right wing policies of ;nri1- of the investments re

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This has led to a low rate of unionisation of the workforce, lower than even central government The

Polo were happy to play the game and corruption was endemic

The loss of "ogot# and setbacks in other regions will almost certainly complicate the political scene forthe ne4t presidential elections and has opened up new tensions in the party with Congressman !van

Cepeda calling on 8aime Dussain to resign and pave the way for a renovation of the party 3owever,

this is unlikely to happen, Dussain's reaction today was to put a spin on the defeat 5The country wasdefeated as people continued to vote for right wing parties, e4cept in "ogot#, where we lost out to

another centre left formation, the Progresistas6 3e stated that he had no intention of resigning

Part of the real tragedy of this defeat is that the left candidate Aurelio Su#re7, was probably the best

candidate they have ever had with a consistent and coherent record and not the slightest whiff of

corruption in his political career Parado4ically he is paying the price for the policies of the right wingelements in the Polo, including those that were espoused by the victor 0ustavo Petro $nless the Polo

is capable of making a clear break with those elements and reestablishing itself as a party that is not

willing to play the game of corruption, cronyism and nepotism it is not likely to recover in the short

term This means paying heed to Cepeda's call to renovate the party and not make concessions to theright for the sake of unity or a presumed electoral gain, which has proved to be illusory as it was they

who caused the greatest harm to its long term prospects, and those that couldn't be in charge, like Petro,

walked away when it was most convenient for them