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Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
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The same would happen here in the US if the system was actually setup to count the votes of the people in aggregate, and then elect a president. Good for Colombians. I'll be back down there in a month.
The same would happen here in the US if the system was actually setup to count the votes of the people in aggregate, and then elect a president. Good for Colombians. I'll be back down there in a month.
I agree. the U.S. system was rigged from the start. This is the reason there hasn't been a far left candidate in recent history but plenty of far right ones.
That's only somewhat true. Behind the scenes, plenty of the conservative establishment quietly endorsed him in the second round. For example, Paloma Valencia and Maria Fernanda Cabal were quite vocal in their support. At that point, it was a "anyone but Petro" mentality for them. And this may have cost him some votes compared to the first round, when as you said being alone in his madness lured in some people fed up enough to vote for someone who claimed to transcend the political spectrum. Some of those folks changed their mind when people from CD voiced their support for him. Below is the list of just a few who came out for him...in all fairness, he got some support from the center as well:
the "anyone but Petro" is not a right wing thing. As I said, over 70% of people didn't vote Petro. And most Colombians classify themselves as center leaning.
RH was just not right wing, he was all over the place with many left and populist ideas. For one, he shared Petro's idea of tariffs for imported food. He also said crime was a socioeconomic problem, and talked about giving free doses to drug addicts. He could not chose who voted for him and who didn't.
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One takeaway I had from the original electoral map (in the first round) is how Hernandez overwhelmingly won the backwaters of the country, places like the Llanos Orientales. Those types of voters have little in common with the urban masses. Fico did quite well in most urban centers of the interior, and I was concerned from the get-go that the educated yet undecided voters would stay home in the second round.
The "backwaters" of the country are also the Pacific Coast, and the Caribbean coast, on which Petro got most of its votes along with Bogota. Don't know what to think of this and why vote there was so different from the Andean regions. The same happens over and over in other countries: north and northeast Brazil vote left, whereas south and southeast vote right wing; coastal Peru is much more right wing leaning than the Sierra, and so on. Maybe it's because people on regions like the Pacific coast don't care much about economy, fiscal policies etc. And there's also strong evidence that armed groups forced people to vote for Petro, at least in some areas.
Fico only did well in the Paisa region, probably just because people there wanted a president from their region.
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I definitely picked up on the vibe that people were nervous about what was going to happen with the second round, but when I saw tons of rallies and posters promoting Petro in the windows of houses in towns as conservative as Santa Rosa de Cabal, I knew that at least some of the population wasn't buying the "nOz baMoz a boLBer como veNeZuela" line.
I don't think that was an important factor. That choice got defeated on first round. Uribismo just got relegated. Hernández campaign didn't turn over that subject.
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Explain to me how the Uribistas allege that Fajardo was "el candidato secreto de las 'FAR' ", that Maduro was paying Venezuelans to come vote for him...explain to me why Petristas allege that Fajardo was "el candidato secreto de Uribe", that somehow just by knowing him and being from the same place as him that he was some sort of Trojan horse. It went on and on. I could usually shut them up with very simple facts and counter-arguments that I could make simplistic enough for them to hopefully understand, but you get the idea. Seriously this was all around me. How could Fajardo been both of these things when he truthfully was neither? I don't know what people were saying about Fico, but I felt that he and Fajardo were better candidates and it is beyond me how these guys could finish 3rd and 4th.
that surprises me a lot, I never heard such things here in Cundinamarca, or in any social networks. Criticism on Fajardo, from what I saw, dwelled on him being irresolute, not compromising, being "con Uribe" and so on (all things completely false).
I think Centro Democrático is center, center right and right wing, not extreme right wing. Cabal is not representative of the party's core IMO.
Links between Uribe and paramilitares have never been proven on any court. All of these petristas/antiuribistas were so eager that Petro will "put Uribe in jail" and he did the opposite, meeting him before meeting with anyone else. So even he knows it will be very hard to prove all of these very poorly founded claims that he was a drug kingpin, a paramilitary chief, etc etc.
The current Vice President of Costa Rica is also a black woman. In fact, she is the first black woman in that position in all of Latin America. Unlike the Colombian one who's ancestors were in Colombia and before that in Africa, the Costa Rican one I think is of Caribbean origin, possibly Jamaica.
Another thing that probably some notice is that these blacks rising to powerful positions appear to be fully or very near fully blacks (aka, little admixture with other folks). While the USA had its first "black" president with Barack Obama, reality is that he is half black and I think being half white is a major reason why he won the presidency, which is fine and history making in the USA. But in much of Latin America he would be a mixed race president. These people rising to vice president position are women, are of near or full black ancestry and are direct descendants of black slaves in the Americas.
To think that ONE black woman in Colombia becomes a big deal is stretching it. The ENTIRE world sees black Americans as a powerful group with disproportionate influence on blacks in the rest of the Americas and even in Africa. There is a whole language of black empowerment that has been used by blacks in Latin America based on the Civil Rights struggle of the USA. A very vibrant black middle class exists in the USA and blacks definitely have influence on social and political policy.
Let us look at New York State. A black mayor in NYC. The Lieutenant Governor is black. The Attorney General is black. New York State Assembly and Senate both led by blacks. 2 of NYCs Borough Presidents are fully black, and a 3rd is a Latino with visible African ancestry. FIVE of the 12 Congressional Reps from NYC are black, including one who describes himself as an Afro Latino. A 6th calls himself "black" when it suits himself. Now describe to me which major Colombian or Brazilian city has this. Spare me the little backwaters where socio economic conditions are a disgrace.
Now let us talk about Costa Rica. The black VP comes from Limon. As is the case with the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua and the Colombian islands of San Andres and Providencia, the blacks there are LOSING ground as they are being pushed aside by non black Latin Americans who have imported their brand of Latin racism and are now marginalizing these people. These people were once the socially, economically and politically dominant peoples within their regions and now they are being cast aside as light skin Latin Americans displace them.
I agree. the U.S. system was rigged from the start. This is the reason there hasn't been a far left candidate in recent history but plenty of far right ones.
First what you call far right might reflect your perspective. Secondly Americans, even black Americans, just do not do left wing. Left wingers need to accept this and modify their messaging if they wish success.
I agree. the U.S. system was rigged from the start. This is the reason there hasn't been a far left candidate in recent history but plenty of far right ones.
Obama is a Cultural Marxist. He was trained as a teenager by a Communist Frank Marshall Davis. The entire Democrat party is Marxist, not economically but culturally. Far right to the left is a constitutionalist.
Obama is a Cultural Marxist. He was trained as a teenager by a Communist Frank Marshall Davis. The entire Democrat party is Marxist, not economically but culturally. Far right to the left is a constitutionalist.
The nonsense never ends. Is every Republican a KKK idealist, maybe not in membership but culturally?
Here we go…CaribNY instead of acknowledging a mile stone in Colombian politics & a shift in cultural consciousness, belittles the magnitude of the event (even though it shouldn’t be). I’ve yet to see the first truly black VP or President of the US for that matter.
African US-Americans have the privilege of living in the most prosperous country in the world but the breach of wealth disparity is equal to that seen in less economically developed countries south of its borders. Of course African US-Americans have done amazing things and have built a lasting protest movement that inspires other civil rights movements around the world but they also did it in a context of more economic, technological, educational & media (documented) opportunities.
Also Francia Márquez doesn’t come from a family or community of university educated people. She comes from the depths of the abandoned communities of the Sugar cane fields of the Cauca river Valley. A woman of her background would be a “stretch” even in the US. And this should not be diminished due to anti agenda propagated by the likes of CaribNY regardless of political persuasion.
Personally I do fear how sound this government’s fiscal and economic policies are going to be. I do hope however they can succeed in ushering in a shift in sustainable social change.
I don't know why you are giving any importance to what CaribNY says. There are all types of people out there and not everyone is given the same weight. For example, when a person claims to have been to so many countries (including places like Venezuela), but for years in her Facebook account she only puts photos of her trips to St Lucia given that most people put at least a couple of photos of the places they visit, that is odd to say the least. Saying that there is "a hair issue" in Latin America when there isn't, but in all the photos I've seen of her is of a black woman with hair that implies straightening (considering she appears as a woman of overwhelming African descent where for the most part this type of hair is smong the least ocurring naturally, especially compared to mixed people where there is a larger percentage of people with natural straight hair and more commonly wavy hair) is odd to say the least. Many of her posts here in several City-Data forums simply stirr the pot and are debated by more knowledgeable people of the subject. So on and so forth.
What happen in Colombia is paramount on many fronts, the goal towards racial equality being one of them. As you said, while the USA had an African descended person as president, reality is that he was at most half African and the other half white American, essentially a mixed guy. Colombia now has a near full or full woman of African descent as vice president, not some half-white guy claiming to be black. When Jesse Jackson ran fir the US presidency in the 1980's, a man who is if African descent at least into the 70%, perhaps 80%, more than Obama, he didn't win the election. Many things define winning an election with race a part of it, but perhaps his heavy African appearance and not being able to reference and show pictures of a white woman caused many voters to not be as warm to him compared to Obama. Regardless what anyone wants to believe or say, the country where CaribNY lives has never had one like the current Colombian vice president as president or vice president. It's ironic that CaribNY would downplay what is a milestone for Colombia when the current vice president of that South American country is genetically more similar to CaribNY than any vice president and president of the USA to date.
Some people need to stop focusing on the mote of someone's elses eye and ignore the beam in their own eyes.
Colombia has made great strides in recent years towards racial (and gender, sexual orientation, etc) equality. This from one of the most conservative countries in the Western Hemisphere. This is something to be applauded and celebrated more than anything else.
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