Paramilitaries Win Elections?

Via Alterna Does Well

One big winner was Senate candidate Antonio Navarro Wolff, a leader of the leftist M-19 former rebel group, which put down its weapons and became a political party after signing a peace agreement with the government in 1990. Navarro Wolff, a former presidential candidate, got one of the highest percentages of voter support in the Senate race. Another M-19 leader, Gustavo Petro, won a seat as a representative for the capital, Bogota. Both candidates were running on the slate of an independent political movement calling itself Via Alterna (Alternate Way). [El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 3/11/02 from AFP; Narco News 3/11/02; El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 3/12/02 from correspondent] Petro has reportedly had to go into hiding temporarily because of death threats. [Hoy (NY) 3/14/02 from EFE]

Olympics Gold Medal Winner Gets Seat

Weightlifter Maria Isabel Urrutia, who became a national heroine when she won Colombia's first Olympic gold medal at the 2000 summer games in Sydney, Australia, won a special congressional seat representing the Afro-Colombian communities. [Miami Herald 3/14/02 from AP] Running on the ticket of the United Popular Group of Black People, Urrutia has pushed herself as a defender of poor peoples' rights to social security and education. [El Colombiano (Medellin) 3/10/02]

AUC Claims 35% of Congress

On Mar. 13, leftist presidential candidate Luis Eduardo Garzon asked the Colombian government to investigate claims made on Mar. 11 by Salvatore Mancuso, commander of the rightwing paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). Mancuso said his organization "had greatly surpassed its goal" for the Mar. 10 elections, with AUC supporters making up more than 35% of the winning congressional candidates. [ED-LP 3/12/02 from AP, 3/14/02 from EFE]

Paramilitary Leader Claims Support for Various Candidates

According to a Mar. 10 report in the Miami Spanish-language daily El Nuevo Herald, just days before the election Mancuso had made sarcastic comments about his organization's support for various candidates. Dismissing accusations that Congress candidate Juan Guillermo Villegas was carrying out "armed propaganda" for the paramilitaries in the northeastern area of Antioquia department, Mancuso said: "We must clarify that this candidate [ Villegas ] is from the camp of [Liberal Party presidential candidate] Horacio Serpa, who we respect, and perhaps he is being supported by the social base of the paramilitaries in that region, just as in other paramilitary zones the people prefer to support [independent presidential candidates] Noemi [ Sanin ], or Alvaro Uribe or Luis Eduardo Garzon, or the negrita (little black woman) Piedad Cordoba who we support with our black people in Quibdo and the Pacific coast, [which are] paramilitary territories." [ENH 3/10/02]

Cordoba Loses Seat

Incumbent senator Piedad Cordoba, a prominent and widely respected Afro-Colombian political leader from the left wing of the Liberal Party, lost her seat in the Mar. 10 election. [New York Times 3/12/02] The AUC abducted Cordoba in 1999, holding her hostage from May 21 to June 4, 1999 [see Updates #486, 488].

Conservatives Support Uribe Velez

Juan Camilo Restrepo, presidential candidate for Colombia's ruling Conservative Party, announced on Mar. 12 that he was withdrawing from the race ahead of the May 26 elections. Restrepo was polling less than 2% in voter intention surveys, and said he had little support from his party. The next day, Mar. 13, the Conservative Party announced it would support the hardline rightwing candidate Alvaro Uribe Velez - who with popular support currently at 59.5%, is expected to win the presidency in the first round. If no candidate gets at least 50%, a runoff will be held on June 16. It is the first time since the Conservative Party was founded in 1849 that it has not had a presidential candidate. Uribe's nearest rival is Serpa, polling at 23%, while independent Sanin is trailing with 5%. Leftist candidate Garzon, a former labor leader, has about 2%. [Xinhuanet 03/14/02; CNN en Espanol 3/13/02 from Reuters; ED-LP 3/14/02 from EFE; Hoy 3/14/02 from AFP] From the Weekly News Update on the Americas (ISSN 1084-922X), published by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York, 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012, 212-674-9499, wnu@igc.org.