One of the ironies about being on the ground here in Bogotá is that I have had less time to write about the elections than I would have had had I stayed in Alabama.

I was planning to sit down today and write something long-ish, but haven’t had time and now lack energy.  Here are some basics quick-takes which focus primarily on the Senate:

• There is no doubt that this is a vote for continuation of Uribe’s policies.  One needed not be a Colombia expert to figure this out.  La U and the PC together will go into the session with 50 seats out of 102.  The PIN with 9 seats and Cambio Radical with 8 would vote with this bloc.  As such, if Juan Manuel Santos of La U wins the presidency, which strikes me as likely, he will have a strong base of support in the Senate (and likely the Chamber, but I am leaving them aside for the moment).
• The Partido Conservador has gone from a party that seemed to be dying a slow death has rebounded of late to assume a place of prominence as part of the governing coalition.  Of course, it is a significant commentary on the evolution of Colombian politics that 22 seats in the Senate equates to the aforementioned place of prominence.  Indeed, it wasn’t that long ago that when they won something like 21 seats¹ in the Senate it was a sign of the aforementioned slow death.
• The Partido Liberal has gone from a party seemingly in the permanent majority to a party seemingly of the permanent opposition.  This started in 1998 and really was obvious by 2002.   If you want to know  a substantial part of the story of why, I know of a certain book² that might help.
• The phenomenon of the PIN (Party of National Integration), which Greg Weeks obliquely referenced today is an interesting and disturbing phenomenon that I plan to discuss further shortly.  The short version is that this is a party that evolved from a series of parties which had their legal status revoked because of connections to paramilitary groups which is called the parapolítica scandal.  Many of the candidates are family members of politicians who were charged (and even convicted) in the scandal.  The PIN, by the way, can be expected, as noted, to vote with La U and the PC.
• The Polo Democrático Alternativo (the party of the left/center-left) continues that sector’s history within Colombian politics—i.e., of disorganization and internal in-fighting.  At the moment my impression of the Polo is that it is behaving a bit like the AD/M-19 did a decade+ ago.  Indeed, the Polo emerged, in part, from the ashes of the AD/M-19.
• The prevalence of null votes does indicate a real problem with process, which I witnessed first-hand yesterday. That will get its own post shortly as well.

Basic results can be views at El Tiempo’s web site.

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1. I am too lazy to look at the numbers right now, but I am thinking back to 1994. [↩]
2. Which, I notice, is now on sale at a fairly hefty discount.  I am not sure what that means… [↩]