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Mockus refuses to take US$2 million for Presidential campaign

By Manuel Rueda, Editorial Director

Monday, April 12, 2010

In an unprecedented move for a Colombian politician, Presidential candidate Antanas Mockus asked only for half the money he could´ve claimed from the Colombian state in order to finance his campaign.

Presidential elections are coming up on May 30^th and Mockus´ Green Party had the possibility of claiming 7,500 million pesos (about US$3.25 million) to recover the costs of setting up presidential primaries and running campaigns in the March 14^th congressional elections.

But the former Bogota Mayor has decided to claim less than half of the money he is entitled to – 3,000 million pesos – claiming that his party has been running an “austere” campaign and did not manage to spend 7,500 million in its primaries.

More than one and a half million people voted in the green party presidential primaries in March and Colombian law would allow the party to claim 4,217 pesos (about US$2.10) for every vote that was cast in its favor.

However Green Party campaign manager Enrique Peñalosa – who is also a former Mayor of Bogota – has said that the party preferred to be austere so that the government can use the unclaimed 4,000 million pesos  (about US$2 million) in public works “like building a school.”

This is the first time a political party in Colombia has refused to use all of the campaign funds allocated to it by the Colombian state.

In a country were politicians are notorious for spending more than 5 times the legal limit on their campaigns by resorting to accepting illegal funds or receiving under the table payments from corporations, the Green Party´s gesture is a powerful message.

Mockus was twice the mayor of Bogota and successfully started education programs and infrastructure projects like the transmilenio bus system.

He is known for performing “pedagogic” acts to get citizens involved in solving local problems, such as cleaning trash off the city´s streets in a super hero costume, and regularly biking to work in order to promote environmental consciousness.

The Green Party candidate is currently running third in the polls with 9% of voting intention, trailing Conservative Party candidate Noemi Sanin who has about 17% of voting intent, and Former Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos who is the front-runner with around 34%.

However independent presidential candidate Sergio Fajardo recently dropped out of the race in order to support the Mockus bid and political analysts say that this alliance could help the Green Party candidate gain second place in the May elections, and secure him a spot in a second round run-off with Santos, the candidate who most adamantly supports current government policies.