The Colombian electoral campaign, between embarrassment and nonsense

The campaign for the elections on March 13 in Colombia has left embarrassing moments, such as Senate candidates who do not know how Congress works, a candidate giving drunken speeches on stage or risky slogans such as “Not even for Putin… They are going to fuck like Venezuela.”

Accustomed to seeing candidates dancing in other electoral rounds, this campaign has not left scenes worthy (or unworthy) of Broadway, although some, such as the Uribismo candidate, Óscar Iván Zuluaga, dared to make a dance threat on TikTok, downloading to the floor without too much rhythm.

The big blunders

Íngrid Betancourt’s return to the presidential race, just 20 years after the FARC kidnapped her when she was also trying to reach the Casa de Nariño, has controversial moments, with a scandalous reference in a debate in which she said that “women they get raped.”

Betancourt assured that it had been a bad translation from French, his second language, but it is not the only time that he has “screwed up” during these weeks.

In an interview on the RCN television newscast, he was asked which of his rivals he would ally himself with and he seemed not to know any of them, or where they came from or in which party they were active, and his only question was: but does he have machinery? Colombia is used to refer to the tricks of patronage politicians suspected of buying votes.

She has not been the only one who has had a bad time on a television set, since the candidates for the Senate for the New Liberalism and Green Alliance Sandra Borda and Ariel Ávila, respectively, failed absolutely all the questions they were asked in RCN News about operation congressional.

The questions were about who calls extraordinary sessions, how many debates a bill needs or how many permanent commissions there are in the two chambers.

But perhaps one of the most notorious moments of this campaign -which will last until May 29 for the candidates for the Presidency- was a speech by the leftist Gustavo Petro, pre-candidate for the Historical Pact and favorite in the polls, on May 6 February in Girardot, a city in central Colombia.

“That this city can be called the red capital of Colombia again,” Petro pronounced in a visible state of drunkenness that he himself confirmed two days later when he acknowledged that “a drink did not suit him.”

Excess creativity among the greens

Billboards have also been the protagonists of the Alianza Verde party’s campaign and not precisely because of the creativity of the candidates, but because of its excess.

The most notorious case was that of the representative to the Chamber Katherine Miranda, who aspires to re-election and installed several billboards in Bogotá that said “Do not abuse the country.”

This in reference to Karen Abudinen, former Minister of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) who left office in the midst of a scandal over alleged irregularities in a millionaire contract and whose last name began to be popularly used as a synonym for stealing or swindling. .

Two weeks ago, the National Electoral Council (CNE) ordered Miranda to dismantle the fences, after which, and despite not agreeing, the candidate complied with the order and replaced them with others that said “Don’t steal the country from us.”

Diana Rodríguez, who is also seeking to reach the Chamber for the same party, took advantage of Betancourt’s blunder when she said that “women are raped” and on a fence she crossed out the word “rape” and replaced it with “choose ”, something that was criticized from various sectors that consider that the message re-victimizes women who have been raped. Rodríguez also ended up removing the fences.

The ghosts of Putin and Maduro

The Democratic Center, the right-wing party of which President Iván Duque is a member, appealed one more campaign to the “socialist” ghosts of the presidents of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro.

“Not even for Putin are they going to screw us like Venezuela,” reads the banner installed in a border area with that country by Senate candidate Juan Pablo Celis, which also includes photos of both presidents.

However, the ruling party went further and in Bogotá it also installed billboards in which the candidates of the leftist Historical Pact appear with the message “Beware of Congress. The moment to save Colombia from the enemies of freedom is now”.

The CNE also ordered the Senate of the Democratic Center, former Secretary of Government of Bogotá Miguel Uribe Turbay, to remove the fence at the head of the list.

the tiktoker candidate

Another protagonist of the campaign has been the presidential candidate Rodolfo Hernández, former mayor of Bucaramanga and self-styled, despite his 76 years, the “King of TikTok”, where he has more than 268,000 followers.

Hernández, who is presenting himself for signatures to the Presidency and appears at the top of the polls, has published montages on that social network in which his face, for example, appears on the body of Mario Bros or another in which he is on a rocket for his rise in the polls.

The candidate has also published videos exercising or even one of a photo session in which he says “Old man but tasty”, with which he seeks to catch votes among the youngest.