Elections in Colombia

Colombia 2010
Colombia held elections to both houses of Congress on March 14, electing 102 Senators in a single nationwide constituency and 166 deputies elected in 33 regional constituencies. These elections precede the May 30 presidential elections, elections marked by the retirement (rather forced) of incumbent President Álvaro Uribe, in office since 2002. Uribe’s attempt to stand for a third term were turned down by the Constitutional Court in late February 2010 by a 7-2 margin.
Colombian politics, like politics in most South American countries, used to be dominated by two parties: the Liberals, who favoured free trade, a federal state and separation of church and state; and the Conservatives, led by landowners and the clergy who supported a centralized state with close links to the Catholic Church and an economic policy based around protectionism. In early Colombian history, both parties peacefully and rather ‘democratically’ alternated in power until armed revolt first emerged in 1899 with the Thousands Day War, which lasted until 1902 and led to the loss of Panama in 1903. Another armed conflict emerged in 1948 between Conservatives and Liberals after the assassination of popular Liberal populist presidential candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. This era, which ended in around 1958, became known as La Violencia and led to the rise of a bi-partisan National Front in 1957 which overthrew a military government and which ruled Colombia until 1974. Under the National Front, the Liberals and Conservatives alternated in powers for four presidential terms (a Liberal government was followed by a Conservative and then a Liberal government returned, and so on). Despite quelling a lot of the violence, and instituting some social reforms, the National Front failed to solve a number of social and economic problems which led to the emergence of now-infamous left-leaning guerrilla movements, such as the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, founded in 1964 as the military wing of the Communist Party but the links are long gone and the FARC is now a large, wealthy and strong group financed by drug cartels and kidnappings). The National Front ended in 1974, but the Liberals and Conservatives, whose ideological differences were by now quasi-inexistent, continued to dominate a two-party system dominated more and more by powerful drug lords, drug cartels and right-wing paramilitaries. Attempted negotiations between the FARC and Colombia’s Conservative President Andres Pastrana between 1999 and 2002 failed and led to the final collapse of the two-party system amidst popular disillusionment with Conservatives and Liberals.
A former Liberal, Álvaro Uribe was elected President in 2002 on a platform criticizing Pastrana’s peace process and promising to crack down on the FARC and paramilitaries. Elected by a large margin, he was re-elected in 2006. Due to his relative success in dealing with the FARC and despite the parapolitics scandal in which a number of politicians were accused of links with paramilitaries, Uribe has maintained a high approval rating throughout his term. His presidency has also led to the emergence of new political forces, the two largest of which are the Social National Unity Party (the Partido de la U), the primary Uribist party; and the anti-Uribe left-wing Alternative Democratic Pole which supports negotiations with the FARC. The Liberal Party is largely in opposition to Uribe, while the Conservatives, Radical Change (a 1998 splinter of the Liberals) and the new Party of National Integration are members of Uribe’s majority. A Green Party has also recently emerged, and its ranks include three former Bogota mayors including Luis Eduardo Garzón and Antanas Mockus.
Here are the Senate results with 93.8% of votes counted, using results from CaracolTV and Spanish Wikipedia:
Party of the U 26.32% winning 27 seats (+7)Conservative 21.57% winning 21 seats (+3)Liberal 16.56% winning 18 seats (nc)Party of National Integration 8.71% winning 8 seats (+8)Radical Change 8.34% winning 8 seats (-2)Alternative Democratic Pole 8.1% winning 8 seats (-2)Green Party 4.99% winning 4 seats (+4)MIRA 2.8% winning 2 seats (nc)
The pro-Uribe parties weigh 64 seats, against 26 for the opposition and 6 others (4 Greens, 2 MIRA) which are tricky to classify.
These elections are good indicators for the May presidential ballot. In a primary held the same day, former ambassador Noemí Sanín narrowly won the Conservative nomination against former Agriculture Minister Andrés Arias. Both are close Uribe allies. Antanas Mockus won the Green nomination. The major candidates also in the field include Defense Minister and close Uribe ally Juan Manuel Santos, Rafael Pardo of the Liberal Party, Gustavo Petro on the left for the PDA and Germán Vargas Lleras, another close Uribe ally for Radical Change. A runoff is likely, but Juan Manuel Santos seems to be the early frontrunner.

report # 108 summary

Costa Rica. Presidential Election 2010

Regions
Solís
Chinchilla
Guevara
Total
25.12%
46.78%
20.83%
SAN JOSE
29.04%
49.52%
17.51%
ALAJUELA
26.49%
45.20%
21.92%
CARTAGO
23.44%
49.68%
19.31%
HEREDIA
27.67%
46.53%
19.44%
GUANACASTE
16.09%
50.99%
23.23%
PUNTARENAS
17.12%
49.03%
26.68%
LIMON
17.41%
41.36%
31.41%

5. Costa Rica 2010 election analysis
General elections were held in the Central American nation of Costa Rica on February 7. Incumbent President and Nobel Prize Laureate Óscar Arias, elected to a second non-consecutive term following a very narrow election in 2006, was not allowed to seek re-election. The 57 members of Costa Rica’s 57-member Legislative Assembly were also up for re-election.
In the largely middle-class and racially homogeneous, consensus-based peaceful, moderate politics have prevailed in Costa Rica since a period of brief turbulence in 1948. Between 1948 and 2006, Costa Rican politics were very bipartisan with two major power blocs: on the left, the National Liberation Party (PLN) and on the right, the Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC). Ideological distinctions were often blurry between both parties, though historically the PUSC advocated more neoliberal economic policies despite being a ’social Christian’ and populist party. Still, the PLN under President Óscar Arias has moved to the right and many members of the PLN’s left-wing have criticized the party’s shift to the right and some members of the PLN, such as Ottón Solís have left the party. The PUSC, whose candidate Abel Pacheco won the 2002 election, was destroyed by a large corruption scandal involving former PUSC Presidents following the 2002 election.
In the 2006 election, Arias, who was first elected in 1986 and left office in 1990 with a Nobel Prize in hand for his efforts at peace negotiations in neighboring countries which had been engulfed in civil wars in the 80s, was allowed to seek re-election in 2006. He won 40.9% of the vote against 39.8% for Ottón Solís. The PUSC’s Ricardo Toledo won 3.55% of the vote.
In an internal PLN primary, Arias’ candidate, Laura Chinchilla defeated the candidate of the PLN left – Johnny Araya, Mayor of San José with 55% against 41% for her main opponent. Chinchilla is a member of the so-called Arista wing of the PLN, or the right-wing which supports CAFTA (free trade with the US) and positions itself outside the PLN’s historical socialist ideology and more on a Third Way scale.
Her two main opponents were Ottón Solís, running to her left on a left wing platform opposed to neoliberalism and CAFTA; and Otto Guevara of the Libertarian Movement (ML), which supports a free-market economy and is a classical liberal party. The ML is notably pro-American and strongly opposed to the Cuban regime, and has seemingly benefited from the 2006 collapse of the PUSC. Here are the results of the presidential election:
Italicized candidates dropped out in favour of Ottón Solís.
Laura Chinchilla (PLN) 46.78%Ottón Solís (PAC) 25.15%Otto Guevara (ML) 20.83%Luis Fishman (PUSC) 3.86%Óscar López (PAE) 1.91%Mayra González (PRC) 0.72%Eugenio Trejos (FA) 0.37%Rolando Araya (AP) 0.21%Walter Muñoz (IN) 0.17%

In the legislative elections, here are the results for the major parties. Data from the TSE and La Nacion newspaper.
PLN 37.16% winning 23 seats (-1)PAC 17.68% winning 12 seats (-5)ML 14.48% winning 9 seats (+3)PUSC 8.05% winning 6 seats (+1)PAE 9.17% winning 4 seats (+3)PRC 3.79% winning 1 seat (+1)FA 3.66% winning 1 seat (+1)RN 1.62% winning 1 seat (+1)
The other parties winning seats include the left-wing ‘Accessibility without Exclusion’, a single-issue (disabled rights) party; the Costa Rican Renovation (PRC) party which is a Christian Protestant evangelical right-wing party; the very left-wing Broad Front and a party ‘National Restoration’ which I can’t find information about.