A Sad Day for Partido Verde

Above: The presidential candidates

Today was a disappointing day for Mockus supporters. Although there is another election June 20th, and although Mockus did make it to the top two, and despite the fact that he could, in fact, still become president, he received a much smaller percentage of the vote than anyone predicted. Less than 22%, in fact. And Santos... well, he took around 46% of the vote.

I'm very disappointed because it is fairly unlikely that Mockus will win the next election. The next highest candidate, Vargas, who took around 10% of the vote, is a conservative, so that means all those votes will go to Santos. Sanin is also conservative--the only votes Mockus will take are those of Pardo (Liberal) and Petro (Democratic Poll).

I'm sure Mockus and his fellow Greens are both surprised and slightly devastated by the results, as I am. The polls consistently gave Mockus around 32% of the vote during the weeks leading up to this election, and I don't think anyone expected Santos to get such a high percentage during the first round of voting

My guess is that the polls did not accurately represent all the geographic regions of Colombia. Also, I think a lot of people came out of hiding to vote for Santos out of fear (secretly, many Colombians are still worried that without Uribe the country will return to the dangerous chaos of the past). I also think Santos did some dirty campaigning in the last month--for example, there is a Party of the U billboard in downtown Pereira that says "En Colombia, nosotros decidemos los Colombianos", which essentially means "In Colombia, we choose Colombians." It's a jab at Mockus's background... his parents are Lithuanian, but he was born here. Also, I'm not putting Santos above paying voters or altering the vote, as that is sadly a fairly common practice here. (Another billboard it town encourages people to vote for what they believe and to not let anyone buy their vote.) I'm not saying he did, but it has happened before.

Anyway. I'm not happy, but at least Mockus made it into the top two. There is still a chance he could win, and even if he doesn't, the Green Party has established a firm base of supporters here, and hopefully it will continue to grow.