Presidential election in Colombia 2002

In Colombia , a presidential election took place on May 28, 2002 , in which the independent candidate Álvaro Uribe Vélez was elected in the first ballot.

Situation before the elections

The term of office of the conservative president Andrés Pastrana Arango ( 1998 - 2002 ) was by the internal armed conflict and the peace negotiations between the government and the largest guerrilla group in the country, the FARC dominated. As part of these negotiations, Pastrana had assured the FARC of a “demobilized zone” the size of Switzerland , which was officially considered a neutral negotiating territory, but which very quickly became a retreat for the guerrilla troops, who intensified their attacks on the government troops from within the zone. In 2001 the negotiations were already breaking down, and on February 21, 2002 the government broke off talks with the FARC.

According to political scientists and journalists , these failed negotiations and the new wave of violence changed public opinion ; the call for crackdown on the guerrilla movement grew loud.

Candidates

Liberal Party

As in the 1998 election, ex-minister Horacio Serpa Uribe , who was considered a big favorite in the run-up to the elections, ran for the Liberal Party of Colombia . In the 2001 internal party primaries, he was supposed to compete against ex-minister Cecilia López Montaño , former senator Julio César Turbay Quintero , son of former president Julio César Turbay Ayala , and the former governor of Antioquia , Álvaro Uribe Vélez . However, this resigned from the Liberal Party due to ideological differences and stood for election as an independent candidate. A few weeks later, Turbay and Montaño announced that they would not stand, so that Serpa was declared the official candidate of the Liberal Party without a primary election. Parts of the Liberal Party supported Uribe despite his resignation.

Conservative Party

Since the re-election of the incumbent President Andrés Pastrana Arango was prohibited by the constitution, the conservative party had to look for a new majority candidate. First of all, the ex-minister Noemí Sanín should run for the election, who had resigned from the Conservative Party in 1998, refused and ran as an independent candidate of her movement Sí Colombia (Spanish: Yes, Colombia ). The ex-minister Humberto de La Calle , a member of the Liberal Party, turned down a candidacy for the Conservatives, after which the former Minister for Economic Development, Augusto Ramírez Ocampo, became the official candidate of the Conservative Party.

Ramírez Ocampo was, however, neither in his party nor in the population particularly popular. After polls showed that less than 1% of the population would vote for him, he withdrew his candidacy. Party leader Carlos Holguín Sardi then called for applications for new internal party primaries, in which the ex-minister Juan Camilo Restrepo ultimately prevailed with a large majority against the ex-minister Marino Jaramillo and the completely unknown candidate Francisco Tovar.

When the independent candidate Uribe was ahead in all polls shortly before the election, Restrepo withdrew his candidacy and the Conservative party supported Uribe, despite the fact that Uribe had repeatedly harshly criticized the government of the incumbent Conservative President.

Álvaro Uribe Vélez (independent)

The former governor Antioquias ran for election with a mainly security -oriented program in which he promised to crack down on the guerrilla movement. Other election promises included a cut in public spending and the announcement of a referendum on key political and economic issues. His candidacy was officially supported by the Conservative Party from early 2002; parts of the Liberal Party also supported him.

Initially, Uribe was third in the polls, behind liberal candidate Serpa and independent candidate Sanín. However, when the failure of the peace negotiations with the FARC became apparent in late 2001, it became increasingly popular. Shortly after the negotiations ended, Uribe was already nine percentage points ahead of Serpa.

Uribe was accused by various quarters, including by his rival Serpa, of having made contact with the paramilitary groups in Antioquia during his time as governor . These allegations were compounded by the fact that some paramilitaries expressed their support for Uribe. He was also accused of having relationships with members of the Medellín cartel . However, none of these allegations could be substantiated.

Uribe's candidate for the office of Vice President, who is also elected in Colombia's presidential election, was Francisco Santos Calderón , who founded the anti-kidnapping NGO Fundación País Libre (Spanish: Free Land Foundation ) after his kidnapping by Pablo Escobar . Santo's family is known nationwide as the owners of the largest Colombian daily newspaper, El Tiempo, and as traditional supporters of the Liberal Party.

Noemí Sanín (independent)

The ex-minister, who had run as an independent candidate in 1998 and resigned from the Conservative Party for a long time, was in second place in the polls after Horacio Serpa and before Álvaro Uribe, but only achieved a good 5% in the elections.

Left Party

For the newly founded left-wing party Polo Democrático Independiente ( Spanish : Independent Democratic Pole ), the former union leader and former mayor of Bogotá , Luis Eduardo Garzón , competed . Garzón was a popular politician in the capital; but he did not succeed in uniting the different groups of the politically left wing nationwide.

Green

For the still young green party Oxígeno Verde (Spanish: Green Oxygen ), its founder Íngrid Betancourt joined. The former senator of French descent achieved only very low scores in the polls, but attracted attention with her election campaign, which was directed against the traditional party system.

On February 23, 2002, Betancourt was kidnapped by the FARC on the way to an election rally in San Vicente del Caguán , Caquetá , where peace negotiations with the FARC guerrilla group were taking place. Until July 2, 2008, it was in the hands of the largest guerrilla group in the country.

Others

Ex- General Harold Bedoya Pizarro ran as an independent candidate with a program in which security policy played the greatest role. All other candidates together achieved less than 0.5% of the vote in the election.

Election result

In the election on May 28, 2002, Álvaro Uribe was elected in the first ballot as the first President of Colombia with 53% of the vote. International election observers described the course of the elections as largely fair, but criticized the threats that had been voiced in advance by the guerrilla movement (FARC, ELN ) and the paramilitaries ( AUC ). The turnout , at 47%, was slightly lower than in the previous presidential election.

candidate	Political party	Number of votes	%
Álvaro Uribe Vélez	Primero Colombia	5,862,655	53.048
Horacio Serpa Uribe	liberal	3,514,779	31.803
Luis Eduardo Garzón	Polo Democrático Independiente	680.245	6.155
Noemí Sanín	Sí Colombia	641,884	5.808
Íngrid Betancourt	Oxígeno Verde	53,922	0.488
Harold Bedoya Pizarro	Fuerza Colombia	50,763	0.459
Others		51,281
Total number of ballots submitted for candidates		11,607,672	98.05
Votes cast ( turnout 46.471%)		10,855,529
Invalid votes and abstentions		394.295
Source: Registraduría Nacional del Estado Civil

See also

• List of Presidents of Colombia

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Registraduría Nacional del Estado Civil ( Memento of the original of September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.