It was a resounding defeat. Despite losing in the big cities and in almost the entire country, the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, did not recognize his failure this Monday. On the social network
He omitted that the Historical Pact alone only conquered two of the 32 departments. Nariño, bordering Ecuador, and the Caribbean Magdalena gave him a break on the fateful Sunday night. The rest of the town councils were achieved in alliance with different parties, not all of them left-wing.
In Bogotá, where Petro was mayor, he received a hard blow. His candidate was relegated to third place.
“There is its own territorial dynamic where the perception of the national government has little influence and where political machines have more influence. However, it is very significant that in key places such as Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Cartagena or Barranquilla, not only outsiders have been elected. to their political group, but have clearly expressed their rejection and opposition to the Government,” analyst Gabriel Cifuentes explains to EL MUNDO. “The causes? There is a little bit of everything. Misgovernance, insecurity, lack of dialogue, frustrated expectations and a series of scandals that cracked the promise of change,” he adds.
In the capital, the centrist Carlos Fernando Galán won, who at 49 years old was running for the third time and did so with Nuevo Liberalismo, the political formation of his father, Luis Carlos Galán, murdered in 1989 and favorite in those elections. The assassination elevated his figure to the altars, and his son always wanted to take up his witness.
Aware that Bogotá is the jewel in the crown, Petro tried to help his bishop, Gustavo Bolívar, former senator and famous television series scriptwriter, although in Colombia public officials are prohibited from participating in campaigns.
He promised to fully finance the subway if Bogota residents voted to change the current design from surface to underground trains. But the shot backfired. Voters opted for a moderate candidate who prefers consensus to fighting and who will continue the work of a means of transportation that they have been waiting for since 1957.
He also failed to stop his opponents in Cali and Barranquilla, two of his electoral strongholds. In the coastal city, where his son Nicolás resides, businessman Alejandro Char, another centrist who had aspired to the Presidency, swept again with 73%. The socialist followed, with a meager 9%.
Although the so-called Char clan has had victories since 2008, the Petristas hoped to close the gap. But the corruption scandal of Nicolás Petro, a key person in his father’s campaigns in that city, had more impact than the arrest of the brother of the future mayor. Arturo Char awaits trial behind bars for his alleged participation in the fraudulent election of Senator Aída Merlano in 2018.
In Antioquía and its capital, Medellín, which used to vote for the Uribista right until the last elections, the Government suffered another setback. The polls predicted the victory of Federico Gutiérrez, Petro’s rival in the presidential elections. To avoid this, the mayor, Daniel Quintero, a full-blooded Petrista, left the City Council in August to dedicate himself fully to the campaign of his candidate, Juan Carlos Upegui. Everything was in vain: the final result was 73% against 10%.
The Antioquia City Council ended up in the hands of the Democratic Center. Andrés Julián Rendón gave the surprise and returned to Uribismo the square of its core.
For Carlos Arias, a political communications consultant, Petro’s Twitter avalanche in favor of Palestine and against Israel, in the days before the elections, could have harmed him because “it revealed a president more concerned with foreign policy issues than with internal problems”.
Just like “the presidential megalomania and the ringing bell of his supporters, government officials, congressmen of the Historical Pact and influencers, hired to constantly applaud him on social networks, increase the presidential blindness and radicalize a speech that the people rejected with votes of boredom,” he told this newspaper.
In his opinion, “Colombians have shown that the president continues to be, on many issues, an activist and not a ruler who resolves. And changes cannot wait 200 years.”
Rodrigo Pombo, lawyer and human rights defender, for his part, attributes the “collapse of the Historical Pact to disenchantment with so many lies, cynicism and inefficiency. People want clear results and see that the Government and the Historical Pact do not represent any positive change “But they symbolize class violence, political corruption and the abuse of power.” And he adds that “inexperience, ineptitude and cynical populism took their electoral toll.”
Despite the poor results, Carlos Arias does not believe that the president is going to “change course” and Gabriel Cifuentes anticipates that, in the Senate, the most important legislative chamber, “it will be difficult for them to be deaf to an increasingly disenchanted electorate.” with the Government and will begin to think about the 2026 elections. Petro will have limited, fragile governance conditioned on the ability to negotiate by winning vote by vote.