Colombia’s local elections are a mess — and the voting hasn’t even started yet
Colombia’s local elections are a mess — and the voting hasn’t even started yet
Christopher Woody
Colombia made a tremendous stride in September toward ending its half-century conflict when it reached a deal to make peace with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel group within six months.
The country's military leadership called the deal “the most important news in 100 years.”
However, that developing peace deal could be upended by fraud and violence that has been rampant in Colombian elections, the latest round of which are slated to begin on October 25.
An election that goes smoothly — and well for President Juan Manuel Santos — is considered important to continuing and ultimately completing the peace process. Local governors and mayors who face election will be needed to help disarm and reintegrate 20,000 former FARC fighters, as Colombia Reports notes.
Inaccuracies, fraud, and violence
In early September, the country’s Electoral Observation Mission (MOE) warned that nearly 20% of Colombia’s 1,101 municipalities are at risk of both violence and electoral fraud ahead of elections that will select mayors, governors, councils, and assemblies.
More:
http://www.businessinsider.com/colombia-election-mess
[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
(Nothing new for Colombia, is it? Paramilitaries even entering the voting booths to intimdate voters..... )
Earlier story posted at D.U. during Uribe's occupation of the Presidency:
COLOMBIA: "Mark Him on the Ballot - The One Wearing Glasses"
By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, May 8 (IPS) - "With Uribe, we thought: this is the guy who is going to change the country," the 41-year-old fisherwoman told IPS.
That is why her fishing and farming village of 800 people in the central Colombian region of Magdalena Medio decided overwhelmingly to vote for current President Álvaro Uribe in the 2002 presidential elections, when he first ran.
The woman agreed to talk to IPS on the condition that she be asked neither her name (we will call her "L."
nor the name of her village.
(snip)
The odd thing was that in both the 2002 and 2006 elections, despite the fact that the villagers had already decided to vote for Uribe, the far-right paramilitaries, who had committed a number of murders since 1998, when they appeared in the region that was previously dominated by the leftwing guerrillas, pressured the local residents to vote for Uribe anyway.
The paramilitaries did not kill people to pressure the rest to vote for Uribe, as they did in other communities, but merely used "threats," said L.
"If you don't vote for Uribe, you know what the consequences will be," the villagers were told ominously.
And on election day, they breathed down voters’ necks: "This is the candidate you’re going to vote for. You’re going to put your mark by this one. The one wearing glasses," they would say, pointing to Uribe’s photo on the ballot, L. recalled.
"One (of the paramilitaries) was on the precinct board, another one was standing next to the table, and another was a little way off, all of them watching to see if you voted for Uribe," she added, referring to the less than subtle way that the death squads commanded by drug traffickers and allies of the army ensured that L.’s village voted en masse for the current president in both elections.
More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42290
= new reply since forum marked as read
