Colombians head to the polls Sunday to elect new legislators in a vote seen as a referendum on peace talks with leftist guerrillas and a bellwether for May’s presidential election.
Peace talks that President Jose Manuel Santos has held with the Marxist rebels have dominated political life in Colombia since they opened in late 2012 in Cuba.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Latin America’s oldest insurgency, have been at war with the Colombian state for 50 years.
Santos is seeking a second term, and his three-party coalition government is expected to retain control of both chambers of Congress.
That is essential for the peace process, which most Colombians support.
“It is highly likely that the president will retain a strong majority,” said Sandra Borda, professor of political science at the University of the Andes in Bogota. The peace process is key, she added.
“Although many Colombians have their doubts about the process, they will not go so far as to reject it. They do not want it to end,” she said.
The big question however will be how Santos’ predecessor Alvaro Uribe does in his quest for a Senate seat.
– ‘Uribe’s dissonant voice’ –
Uribe, a conservative, is still popular for his no-holds-barred fight against the FARC while in power from 2002 to 2010. Campaigning on the slogan “No to impunity,” he is Colombia’s first ex-president to seek a seat in the Senate, from which he aims to challenge the course of the talks.
But his new party, the Democratic Center, is projected to win only about 14 percent of the votes, which would give it just 19 of the 102 senate seats.
Uribe accuses Santos, his former defense minister, of treason by turning the FARC into “political players” with a high-profile stage in Havana where the talks are being held.
“Uribe’s list is not going to win a majority, but to some extent it will allow him to shape the national agenda,” said Luis Guillermo Patino, a political scientist at Medellin’s Pontifical Bolivarian University.
“It will be very difficult to prevent a ratification of peace accords, but if those accords are put to a referendum a dissonant voice like that of Uribe can resonate powerfully,” Patino said.
Hundreds of thousands of people have died in Colombia’s internal conflict, which involves two guerrilla groups, paramilitary fighters and criminal gangs. All sides have also been involved, directly or indirectly, in the drug trade.
– ‘Pressure and intimidation’ –
Leftist parties, which are traditionally weak in Colombia, have failed to benefit from the peace talks.
“The left is in a very delicate position because it supports the peace process advocated by the government,” Borda said.
At the same time, although the leftist parties are legal and democratic, they are associated with the armed struggle, Patino said.
An added complication is the lack of a ceasefire during the peace process.
Jorge Armando Otalora, the People’s Ombudsman or national mediator, has said that illegal groups including the FARC have exercised “pressure and intimidation” on voters to keep them from voting in at least one-fifth of the country.