Politics is S%&t
A senate candidate is using satirical cartoons to get voters to the polls...
By Manuel Rueda, Editorial Director
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
While walking through the streets of Cali´s upscale El Peñon neighborhood I came across a giant poster of a political candidate.
However this one did not feature the candidate´s picture, but a cartoon of herself in red glasses holding out her hand and the number 5, which is this candidates position on the Compromiso Ciudadano senate list.
Maria Piedad “Mapi” Velasco is trying to rally voters by presenting a fresh and youthful image. When I visited her website I also found out that she´s into animated political cartoons where her colorful alter-ego describes the sad state of the Colombian congress.
In an unequivocal Caleño accent, Mapi criticizes the corruption in Colombia´s congress -- one third of its members are under investigation for links with paramilitary groups -- and analyses current political news.
“Is Colombia´s DNA corrupt?” she rhetorically asks in another cartoon video as she comments the recent suspension of the ADN (which also means DNA in spanish) political party. “Good thing I didn´t accept the – Valle del Cauca – governor´s proposal to be a candidate for his party. Even though they offered me money for ads and some guaranteed votes.”
Many politicians in Colombia win elections by “buying votes” from community leaders who give out cash payments to people in their neighborhoods.
Others make deals with businessmen or public servants who force their employees to vote for a specific candidate in order to keep their jobs.
Analysts say about seventy percent of the votes in Colombia´s congressional elections are usually “tied up” through such schemes.
Mapi, who has little money and who says she is attempting to do “politics in a different way”, is one of many “opinion” candidates who are trying to seduce the small portion of Colombians who vote out of principle.
There is more to the cartoons and cheeky videos as I found out on her site. The “cartoon chick”, as some people call her in Cali, is proposing to end the “war on drugs” by finding ways for Colombia and other Latin American countries to pressure “consumer” countries to legalize drugs.
She says she would like to find ways to generate formal employment by reducing the high cost that Colombian businesses usually have to pay to hire employees such as social security payments and “para-fiscales.”
Mapi is an industrial engineer and also went to school at Harvard where she obtained a master´s degree in public administration. She has fifteen years experience in public service where she has focused mostly on finding ways to make Colombian small and medium size enterprises more competitive and securing export markets for them.
She would bring a breath of fresh air – and ideas -- to Colombia´s lethargic congress. But even she acknowledges it is an uphill battle in this country for somebody who has no money to buy votes or TV ads.
“I don´t know if this is only happening to me or if it´s that time of the year,” she says in one of her cartoon videos, “but I don´t understand why its so f%&*ing hard to raise a damn peso for a campaign with principles and good proposals.”
Mapi´s main senate opponents in the Valle del Cauca State are reported to be spending close to 1 million dollars on their campaigns, surpassing the legal limit of six hundred thousand.
Still, Mapi is hopeful that students, young professionals, and other “opinion voters” will support her candidacy. In her cartoons she´s also found some time to make fun of her own situation just days before the March 14th elections.
“I will become either a political phenomenon who reached the senate through the use of cartoons and the internet,” she says in her most recent internet video “or I´ll have to publish a political cartoons book and sell it to pay for my campaign debts.”
You must be logged in to post comments.
Sign in or create an account to continue.
-
- September 8, 2010 Blog Posts
Colombian Culture
General Blog
-
- September 8, 2010 Blog Posts
Colombian Culture
General Blog
-
- September 6, 2010 Blog Posts
Colombian Culture
General Blog
WoW Spotlight
-
- September 20, 2010
-
Fans of Cuban musicians the Buena Vista Social Club will be excited to hear that one of their most popular members, Omara Portuondo, will be giving a concert in Bogotá on October 1st.
"Feeling's Girlfriend" and "The Voice of Cuba" are just two of the nicknames given to the singer, who has been performing for over fifty years.
WoW News
-
- September 20, 2010
U.S. President Barack Obama will meet his Colombian counterpart Juan Manuel Santos for the first time on September 24th in New York, at a United Nations General Assembly meeting.
The two leaders plan to have a conversation about the future relationship between the two countries.