Election posters for FARC candidate Luis Albán, who’s campaigning for a seat in Colombia’s congress on the eighth March.
John Otis/NPR
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John Otis/NPR
BUGALAGRANDE, Colombia—Ten years in the past, former Marxist guerrillas in Colombia signed a peace treaty with the federal government. The deal allowed them to put down their weapons and run for elected workplace.
Now, a decade later, they’re discovering that profitable votes will be more durable than waging battle.
Amongst them is Luis Albán who’s campaigning to maintain his seat in Colombia’s congress. At a get-out-the-vote rally within the western Colombian city of Bugalagrande. the stocky, bearded candidate appears shy and disoriented. He neglects to inform people who legislative elections are on Sunday and even to state his personal title.
Albán, 68, is extra accustomed to hiding who he’s. At age 12 he joined a clandestine communist youth group then spent 40 years on the run as a high-ranking member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Generally known as the FARC, it was the nation’s largest, and most feared, guerrilla group.
Chatting with NPR from a crowded espresso store, Albán admits: “I never thought I’d be a congressman.”
That modified after the FARC signed a 2016 peace treaty that ended greater than a half century of combating. The guerrillas agreed to put down their weapons, face justice, and compensate their victims in alternate for political ensures and authorities guarantees to develop poor, rural areas that gave rise to the FARC within the Sixties.
To assist the FARC transition to electoral politics, the accord gave the previous guerrillas 10 seats in Colombia’s Congress for 2 four-year legislative phrases – a grace interval that ends this yr.
As a FARC congressman for the previous eight years, Albán realized how one can write laws and perform debates. However to hold onto their jobs, Albán and different FARC lawmakers should win 1000’s of votes.
“This is our first serious campaign,” Albán says. “It’s very difficult.”
Different former guerrillas have managed to drag this off — chief amongst them Gustavo Petro.
Within the Eighties Petro belonged to a Colombian insurgent military referred to as the M-19. After the group disarmed, he served in Congress and as mayor of Bogotá, the Colombian capital and in 2022 was elected president.
“Petro’s rise to power shows that it can be done if you take sound political decisions,” mentioned Javier Florez of the Bogotá-based Concepts for Peace Basis. “But from the beginning the FARC has taken bad decisions.”
A basic downside is the title “FARC.” It evokes terror due to the group’s involvement in massacres, extortion and kidnappings in the course of the battle. But its leaders initially insisted on calling their new political celebration the “FARC.”
By doing so “they shot themselves in the foot,” says Beatriz Gil of Seen Congress, a assume tank that screens Colombian lawmakers. “They remained stuck in the past rather than thinking about their future.”
As an alternative of selling new faces, the FARC allowed veteran commanders accused of battle crimes and drug trafficking to occupy a number of of the group’s congressional seats. Some lawmakers claimed they need to have first confronted justice earlier than a particular battle crimes tribunal earlier than being allowed to serve in Congress and a few boycotted the legislative periods in protest.
Many citizens additionally take a dim view of the rebels-turned-politicians.
Luis Albán out campaigning to maintain his seat in Colombia’s congress.
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Luis Albán, subsequent to his marketing campaign bus. Albán, 68, is extra accustomed to hiding who he’s. He spent 40 years on the run as a high-ranking member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Generally known as the FARC, it was the nation’s largest guerrilla group.
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John Otis/NPR
Equipment salesman Nielson Muñoz factors out that in the course of the battle the guerrillas killed his brother-in-law whom they accused of being a military spy. Talking from the identical espresso store the place Luis Albán is seated, Muñoz eyes the FARC candidate and says: “It’s hard to vote for a person who has been at war for so long.”
Florez, of the Concepts for Peace Basis, says the FARC mistakenly believed that Colombians residing in guerrilla territory in the course of the battle – and who had been obliged to observe insurgent orders – would proceed to assist them as soon as they disarmed
“They were very naïve,” he mentioned
Additional muddying the waters, a whole lot of ex-FARC rebels who turned disillusioned with the peace course of, have rearmed and fashioned a brand new era of legal teams. They name themselves “FARC dissidents” which undercuts FARC candidates making an attempt to persuade voters that they’re now peace-loving democrats.
“They might be good people but you always have your doubts,” mentioned Luz Martínez, a 70-year-old from the Colombian city of Sevilla who mentioned she wouldn’t vote for a former guerrilla.
The FARC title is so poisonous that different left-wing events and politicians that share a number of the former rebels’ targets, like land reform, have stored their distance. Consequently, Florez is predicting an electoral wipeout on Sunday, with the FARC shedding all 10 of its assigned congressional seats in addition to the authorized standing of its political celebration.
“The FARC had eight years to prepare for these elections,” Florez mentioned. “But they did not prepare and these are the consequences.”
Nonetheless, Albán presses forward.
For his marketing campaign occasion in Bugalagrande, he is employed a five-piece band to draw extra consideration. Nevertheless, only a handful of townsfolk present up and the one one expressing a lot enthusiasm is a lottery ticket vendor.
He pledges to assist go out Albán’s marketing campaign leaflets, however solely after the candidate whips out his pockets and buys a lottery ticket.
