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Antanas Mockus- a real maverick who could break the mold in Colombian politics? |
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If Antanas Mockus wins the Colombian elections - and polls indicate
that he will - he won't be your average president. Not only did he make
his name when rector of the National University by dropping his pants
and mooning a packed auditorium of rioting students, but he has
recently been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. And then there's his
party. If the 58-year-old is elected, he will be the first Green head
of state in the world.
Next Sunday, Colombians will vote for a successor to the outgoing
president, Alvaro Uribe, and Mr Mockus, a philosophy professor and
mathematician, is favored to win, leading his rival, the former defense
minister Juan Manuel Santos, by up to nine points in polls. The son of
Lithuanian immigrants, and twice mayor of Bogota (1995-97, 2001-03), he
might never have entered politics were it not for that pants-dropping
incident in 1994. He was forced to resign from his post as rector but,
in a bizarre twist, it triggered a groundswell of support. Suddenly a
symbol of honesty, he stood for mayor of Bogota on a ticket to cut
corruption and curb the city's violence, and won by a record majority.
His
approach is playful, wacky even, but few can fault his two terms as
mayor. To tackle the city's chaotic traffic, he deployed teams of
street mime artists to show both drivers and pedestrians how to behave.
It was so successful he was able to dispense with the corrupt municipal
traffic police and employ more mimes instead.
Mr Mockus's current
"green team" is impressive. It includes Enrique Peñalosa and Luis
Eduardo Garzon, two popular ex-mayors of Bogota, while his
running-mate, Sergio Fajardo, was former mayor of Medellin. A fellow
mathematician-turned-politician, the charismatic Mr Fajardo worked
similar miracles to his boss in Medellin, today a modern city with a
state-of-the-art metro, clean streets and reduced crime.
Since
taking leadership of the Green Party just two months ago, Mr Mockus has
steadily climbed in the polls. Even the recent announcement about his
health failed to halt the rise. At an election rally last Monday in
Manizales, the center of Colombia's coffee region, Mr Mockus urged the
crowd to join him in shouting, "Life is sacred! Life is sacred!" before
highlighting the social problems Colombia needs to face: millions of
people internally displaced by the ongoing guerrilla war and an
increase in poverty. He emphasized the importance of transparency in
the control of public funds and the responsibility of all to pay taxes.
While mayor of Bogota, Mr Mockus introduced an optional 10 per cent tax
for the city's richest residents, which more than 60,000 volunteered to
pay.
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Antanas Mockus rocks to a unique beat. |
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Yet few will deny that President Uribe's government has
brought radical improvements. Since 2002, when he came to power,
kidnappings have fallen by two-thirds and homicides by more than half.
Colombia has also experienced rapid economic growth, thanks to Mr
Uribe's investor-friendly policies. Improved security and favorable tax
rates have seen foreign investment under his leadership increase
five-fold, to an estimated $10bn this year. "Mockus supporters have
forgotten what things were like before Uribe came to power, when we
were under the grip of the guerrillas," says Ruben Torres from the
Colombian city of Cali. "We couldn't travel a few kilometers out of the
city without risk of kidnap or worse."
But the past few years
have been a heady mix of success and scandal. The release of 15
hostages held by the Farc insurgents, including Ingrid Betancourt, in
2008 without a single gunshot marked a political high. But the grisly
news that thousands of innocent civilians had been murdered by the
military and then dressed in guerrilla uniforms has left many desperate
for change. "Under Uribe, human rights abuses by the army have risen
and a third of Congress is under investigation for alleged links to
paramilitary groups," says Grace Livingstone, a Latin American
specialist and author of America's Backyard.
"Colombia is
Washington's closest ally in Latin America," she adds. "For the past 10
years, the US has been pouring money into Colombia - it has received
more US military aid than the rest of Latin America put together." Mr
Mockus throws doubt on some agreements with the US, and he has promised
greater Latin American integration should he come to power. Meanwhile,
Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez, has implied support for the Green
candidate.
While Mr Santos is the ostensible candidate of choice
for the US, Mr Mockus, as a moderate left, could be an acceptable
alternative. Free-trade agreements between the two countries have
stalled, and commentators suggest that Mr Mockus could to help broker a
deal.
But as the Green Party's candidate, where exactly are his
"green" policies? "Unfortunately, the environment is not high on any
candidate's agenda," says Martin Von Hildebrand, director of a
Colombian NGO, Gaia Amazonas. "Under Uribe, the number of licenses
granted for mining exploration/exploitation in the Colombian Amazon has
soared... Selling the country as El Dorado to international mining
companies is just not being questioned."
Despite policy gaps, the
Green Party's campaign has won the youth vote. Antanas Mockus has more
than 600,000 Facebook fans. Mockus campaigners have posted videos and
organized "flash mobs" - where hundreds of supporters converge on parks
or shopping malls at a specific time, and, at a given signal, reveal
their green T-shirts and placards to surprised onlookers.
But the
site has also yielded a death threat. Although it has been dismissed by
many as a sick joke, Ms Livingstone warns that reformist presidential
candidates have been murdered before. "Mockus is not a radical left
candidate," she says, "but is certainly a real maverick who could break
the mold of Colombian politics."
Independent.uk