Santos wins clear victory but elections go to second round
By Manuel Rueda, Editorial Director
Monday, May 31, 2010
Former Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos obtained 46.56% of the votes in Sunday´s presidential election, shocking pollsters who had predicted a neck to neck race between the U Party Candidate and Green Party Candidate Antanas Mockus.
Just one week before the elections were held, opinion polls in Colombia had predicted that Santos would gain somewhere between 36 to 38% of the vote, while Mockus would be in the range of 34 to 36%, with the rest of the votes going to 4 smaller candidates.
On Sunday however, the Green Party candidate performed way below expectations, gaining only 21% of the vote and trailing Santos by 25 percentage points.
Despite Santos´ large margin of victory, the presidential elections will have to go to a second round face off between Mockus and Santos on June 20th as none of the candidates were able to gain 50% of the votes.
The Green Party and Santos´ Partido de la U will now have to woo voters from smaller parties like Cambio Radical, which obtained 10% of the votes and finished third on Sunday, or the traditional Liberal and Conservative parties which together received another 10% of the votes.
Political experts say that with Santos leading Mockus by 25 percentage points, he is almost guaranteed a victory in the second round of the elections.
After results came in on Sunday, Santos spoke to thousands of his followers in a Bogota convention center.
Speaking as if he already were Colombia´s President, Santos thanked God for helping him achieve his victory, and praised President Uribe for being “Colombia´s best President so far." He also had words of thanks for his wife, his allies, and Juan Jose Rendon, a Venezuelan political adviser and spin-doctor whose campaign tactics stirred up controversy during the campaign.
Being in what appeared to be a conciliatory mood, Santos told members of other political parties that he will respect “their best proposals” and encouraged them to join “a government of national unity,” saying that his only enemies were “poverty, corruption and terrorism.”
His supporters cheered him on chanting “today we won, on june 20th we will finish them off.”
Meanwhile, at the Green Party´s headquarters, Mockus´ young followers appeared to maintain good spirits in spite of the disappointing results.
Mockus delayed his appearance on stage for about an hour, and analysts on TV began to suspect the Green Party candidate would give up on participating in a costly, second round of elections.
But Mockus cleared up any doubts after entering the stage, affirming that the Green Party will go to the second round. The former Mayor of Bogota congratulated his "green wave" for having grown from an almost unknown group in January to becoming Colombia´s second largest political force, describing the first round of elections as only a “mid-term exam.”
“With this second round,” he told his followers, “we have the opportunity to advance towards a cultural transformation that liberates our country from violence, drug trafficking and clientelism…it is possible to drastically reduce violence and achieve a more human society.”
During several parts of Mockus´ speech, his followers broke out into typical Green Party chants that defy the traditional way politics are done in Colombia, such as “I didn´t get paid to come here, I came because I wanted to” and “We want to win but not at any cost.”
Mockus, who at times instigated the chants and at times tried to silence his followers to continue his speech, appeared optimistic despite the large gap separating him from Santos.
One by one he addressed the less popular candidates and invited them to join his cause, praising Rafael Pardo's proposals for social justice, German Vargas for his knowledge of the country and Noemi Sanin´s concern for womens´ rights.
But he stopped short of praising Santos, addressing his second round competitor In an unusually defiant tone.
“The citizens have asked us to face off against doctor Santos in the second round” he said.
And perhaps in reference to human rights abuses against Colombian citizens that occurred under Santos' watch as Defense Minister, Mockus added, “On multiple occasions Doctor Santos has demonstrated that he thinks that the ends justify the means.”
The crowd cheered and replied with another chant. “No todo vale” (not everything is acceptable).
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