In these presidential elections in Colombia in May and June, the task of the left is singular, but twofold. Another defeat for Uribe in his two far-right versions, Paloma Valencia and Abelardo de la Espriella. For now, the first defeat, that of Paloma, according to polls, trends, and observations, seems cooked.
She will not make it to the second round. His candidate, taken from Uribe’s pocket and assembled like an automated doll, in the image and likeness of her father and creator, will be widely defeated by Iván Cepeda and the ultra-rightist Abelardo de la Espriella. That first defeat implies that, according to all forecasts, the most viable candidate to close in the second round will not be there.
The foolish idea that this Paloma, supposedly from the center, could gather more loose and slightly off-track votes in the second round than those of Abelardo would no longer be valid or have a future. Cepeda’s strongest opponent, due to the division of the far right, the one who could make the biggest dent, will be relegated. One to zero in these soccer times.
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But the other match is coming to defeat de la Espriella in the second round, if Iván Cepeda does not defeat them both in the first, an option that is increasingly present. In any case, the final match is easier for Iván Cepeda to win against de la Espriella for a definitive 2-0 against Uribe. Those apparently undecided or center votes, which can reach 15% of the electorate, will largely not be received by de la Espriella as it could have happened with Paloma.
Rather, not a few of them will nourish Cepeda’s figures in the face of the refusal of those center people to vote for such an extreme and frivolous option as that of Abelardo and his theses that are basically primary, commonplace, and recalcitrant. Without a doubt, nothing is better for Cepeda than facing the lawyer and not the landowner. In any case, the great loser, Uribe, will surely be trying to converge all his forces on Abelardo, who will surely moderate his speech, but even so Uribe will not be able to mobilize his non-fanatic electorate.
The averaged polls agree. In the second round, Cepeda would take more than 10 points from Abelardo and only 4 from Paloma, who would no longer be there. Although Cepeda’s triumph would largely be due to the immense current that President Petro contributes, he has also grown on his own, without reaching a ceiling, which gives him options to triumph in the first round.
And the friendly fire from the far right in the first and probably in the second round will end up benefiting him in the midst of a firm unity of the left and a growth of opinion that increases in cascade in the popular Colombian sectors. In the second round, Abelardo has it difficult, because while Uribe would support him, Paloma has said that she is not going to carry his bags. Things of hatred between them, which this time are a guarantee of their division.
Paloma is heading towards the abyss and there seems to be no strategy to stop her fall in the midst of increasingly strange, foolish and negatively effective propaganda campaigns, somewhat ridiculous and too aggressive like her self-debates with herself. Meanwhile, even sectors of the right land in Cepeda’s field, in a correlation of forces widely favorable to the continuity of change. In the elections of May 31, half of Uribe’s defeat seems consummated and in June the final blow will come.
Everything indicates that Uribe loses in all scenarios and with it the country triumphs, which will probably get rid of the intellectual author of a long history of perversities in decline forever.
The right in Colombia appears to have totally fallen apart. Respected Comrade Petro has taken the left's first shot at power in Colombia in decades and fucking crushed it, setting up Cepeda to have a comfortable victory in the fall. If Cepeda is politically strong and popular, then the Colombian people will have solved one of the problems that always plagues South American leftists: succession. Not only that, but it will be a doubly powerful mandate against the right. It would be even further substantially bolstered by popular movements winning against the right in other parts of the continent.
Hopeful for a big week in Bolivia. If they go ahead and ratfuck Sanchez in Peru like they are clearly planning to (Peruvian prosecutos seek to disqualify leftist candidate), then let's hope the organized masses in that country follow in their neighbor's footsteps. The situations are so similar: popular leftist forced out of power by US-orchestrated fuckery to impose neoliberalism while the working class and indigenous nations retain high levels of organization. Then, CONAIE in Ecuador, also in the exact same situation as their neighbors...
In each of these countries, do we see the following conditions?
To the Marxist it is indisputable that a revolution is impossible without a revolutionary situation; furthermore, it is not every revolutionary situation that leads to revolution. What, generally speaking, are the symptoms of a revolutionary situation? We shall certainly not be mistaken if we indicate the following three major symptoms: (1) when it is impossible for the ruling classes to maintain their rule without any change; when there is a crisis, in one form or another, among the "upper classes", a crisis in the policy of the ruling class, leading to a fissure through which the discontent and indignation of the oppressed classes burst forth. For a revolution to take place, it is usually insufficient for "the lower classes not to want" to live in the old way; it is also necessary that "the upper classes should be unable" to live in the old way; (2) when the suffering and want of the oppressed classes have grown more acute than usual; (3) when, as a consequence of the above causes, there is a considerable increase in the activity of the masses, who uncomplainingly allow themselves to be robbed in "peace time", but, in turbulent times, are drawn both by all the circumstances of the crisis and by the "upper classes" themselves into independent historical action.
Without these objective changes, which are independent of the will, not only of individual groups and parties but even of individual classes, a revolution, as a general rule, is impossible. The totality of all these objective changes is called a revolutionary situation... revolution arises only out of a situation in which the above-mentioned objective changes are accompanied by a subjective change, namely, the ability of the revolutionary class to take revolutionary mass action strong enough to break (or dislocate) the old government, which never, not even in a period of crisis, "falls", if it is not toppled over.
The US is going to open up a can of revolutionary worms in Latin America that it is not prepared to handle. I long for the destruction of this wretched empire of death.
All this is a major factor for my optimism. The focus of my take is that we will see at least one major revolutionary upheaval across Bolivia, Ecuador, or Peru - with the likelihood in that order. If that upheaval is successful, which in Bolivia is as simple as placing the Evo movement back in power with an enormous mandate, then it increases the odds of the other two. Best case scenario, though admittedly unlikely, is all three going and forming a revolutionary alliance with each other, Venezuela, and Colombia that's a much-expanded ALBA and the foundation for an Alliance of Sahel States style confederation. If it proceeds that far, Chile and even Argentina could go. But now I'm getting ahead of myself!
Let's just leave it at my core prediction I'm confident about: the right wingers in Bolivia and Ecuador are not going to make it to the end of their term, someone aligned with Castillo will come to power in Peru, and in one of those there will be an entrenchment of a socialist movement that at minimum goes as far as MAS did in power.
nooooo that's campism noooooo stop camping!