In less than a month, elections in Colombia will determine who succeeds President Alvaro Uribe. His candidate, Juan Manuel Santos the former Minister of Defense was the frontrunner until the unexpected candidacy of Antanas Mockus, elected twice major of Bogotá, who took the lead over Santos opponent, former Chancellor Noemí Sanín. The move looks a bit like the equally surprising rise of Marco Enriquez Ominami in Chile, the candidate who was expected to defeat the now President Sebastián Piñera.
Since Uribe has been a great president, with a clear foreign policy that included the control of the FARC and Venezuela’s push, along with a close partnership with the United States, it was more than evident that political forces opposed to Uribe from inside Colombia and from other countries in Latin America, would work against power in place, to weaken it or to substitute it.
At the same time, Mockus high scores in recent polls may be showing that Colombia craves for a change, a softer policy that would help to integrate people who already feel themselves free from any harm. Whether Colombia is actually ready to change into that direction or not, is more a matter of realism than wishful thinking. In this sense, Colombians may finally perceive that a strong hand is still needed and give Santos a victory, postponing change to a later date.
