User blog:Fedelede/Colombian Elections in 83DD

Okay, presidential elections occurred today in Colombia (legislative elections occurred in may), with the victory of the incumbent President Juan Manuel Santos against his opponent to the right, Óscar Iván Zuluaga.

I'm going to do the most obvious thing and have the people of the wiki vote for presidents (since asking for uninformed people's opinion on the subject is essentially what we do in Colombia anyway).

The main candidates for the Colombian presidential contest were: The contenders defeated in the first round of the election: Other possible contenders:
 * Juan Manuel Santos Calderón, for the Social Party of National Unity. In Doomsday, he is the incumbent president from 2006 to the present day (at the time of the writing, 2009, which will remain equal, since IATL, with no Uribe, there is no single reelection); hence he is disqualified from election to both second term in 2010 and third term in 2014. Santos is a mildly corrupt, heavily populist leader who was enforced with continuing the peace process; hence, given that peace was achieved in the 80s IATL, he will not be as popular as IOTL. Instead, his popularity will probably be far lower because of the higher predominance than issues with the cafeteros might have. Got 50.1% of the vote in today's election
 * Óscar Ivan Zurriaga Zuluaga Escobar contender of the rightist Centro Democrático party; the forever present response by the province of Antioquia against the central government of Bogotá. Zuluaga is the president of the cafeteros, and appeals to mid-higher class voters through promises of increased education (rather than Santos' main populist policy of house-building), as well as tackling the crises with the Cafeteros, the health system and corruption, and aided by the ever-present figure of Álvaro Uribe behind him. Got 45.5% of the vote in today's election.
 * Marta Lucía Ramírez, contender of the Conservative Party of Colombia; socially very conservative, but economically centrish, supportive of the Colombian middle class (as of today's contenders, she is, with Zuluaga, the least wealthy); looked for higher quality rather than increased coverage, and seeking an alliance with the official figure of Uribism. I believe that the Tories' nationalism will lead to decreased popularity because of the South African Confederation.
 * Clara López Obregón of the leftist Alternative Democratic Pole. Closer to an European socialist than a Colombian... whatever, she looks for the establishment of the welfare state in the Republic and the development of the workers' rights in Colombia. Graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in '72 and again from Salamanca in 2002 (wouldn't happen IOTL) and los Andes in 2006. Looked to be above petty politics until she started supporting Santos about a week ago. López was the prime candidate for the Colombian left.
 * Enrique Peñalosa of the Green Party, which split the leftist vote with Clara. Her main ideology is opposing corrupt politics. While he has also devoted some time to fighting against corrupt politics, he has been criticised for only caring about corrupt policies, but we must not forget his implacable fact against corrupt politics. He also opposes the terrible prison system in Colombia, and corrupt politics.
 * Horacio Serpa Uribe is the perennial contender for the Liberal Party (he was the candidate for the elections in 1998, 2002 and 2006). He is about as popular as pancreatic cancer, given that in the 1998 election the press formed a group called TOCONSER, meaning Todos Contra Serpa (All Against Serpa). He seems to be just your run of the mill corrupt politician, so I don't think I will choose them.
 * Antanas Mockus Šivickas, of the Green Party until 2010, when he retired probably due to ill health (he probably has Parkinson's, but was elected as senator). While not as extreme as López, Mockus is also a supporter of the European welfare state, supporting Colombia's transition into skilled and scientific labour.
 * Sergio Fajardo Valderrama, also of the Green Party, current Governor of Antioquia and most popular Mayor of Medellín in history. Fajardo has been a great backer of education reform, establishing great amounts of public education programmes, such as a great expansion of university programmes in Medellín first and then in Antioquia (through his programme of Antioquia, la Más Educada, which stopped the decline of skilled labour caused by liberalisation in Bogotá during the Santos government to occur in Antioquia; the process of establishing a great electronic presence in schools; and the large scholarship programmes for good-quality universities, both in Bogotá and abroad). Fajardo is also a great supporter of cultural policy and the development of infrastructure, which is competely and absolutely lacking in parts of the nation. Fajardo has done a great deal of support for the city of Medellín and Antioquia, and I personally support a Fajardo/Mockus, Fajardo/Peñalosa or Fajardo/López ticket for the 83DD presidency.
 * Radamel Falcao, an extremely famous footballer; given that he was unable to fight for Colombia in the WC, why not make him President? He can't do a worse job than those currently here.
 * more will come.