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The power of the evangelical churches in Colombia

2021-04-13T02:16:47.330Z


In 2022 there will be a clash of models of society between the progressive forces and the Christian parties


Former minister and former ambassador Rodrigo Rivera, in a file image NELSON CÁRDENAS

In Colombia, every large evangelical church has a political party or, at least, a pastor running for something.

These religious settings were called garage churches for years, because in each city neighborhood a small church with any name was opened.

However, little by little they were gaining parishioners and the Catholic Church began to lose followers.

At the beginning of the new millennium they managed to elect some congressmen;

For the year 2018 they mixed in the traditional parties and managed to elect several senators with important votes.

They also generally supported right-wing presidential candidates and were linked to major political projects such as Uribism or the Conservative Party.

By 2022, when Colombia holds legislative and presidential elections, radical Christian movements have made at least three decisions.

On the one hand, they will have a list for the Congress of the Republic that would unify at least 70% of these churches.

They say they could get up to 15 senators, that is, almost double what they currently have.

The second strategy is that they leave the consultation of the right wing and Uribism, they abandon the sinking ship, to go to their own consultation.

So far four candidates are known.

1. Ricardo Arias of the Colombia Fair and Free Party.

2. Viviane Morales, who was a prosecutor, senator and ambassador, her church called Casa sobre la roca.

3. Jimmy Chamorro, former congressman and who had an electoral failure that took him out of the electoral game for several years.

4. Rodrigo Rivera, former ambassador and former minister.

The third strategy is to distance oneself from the debate on uribism and on the Executive of Iván Duque.

Although these radical churches were part of the government coalition, they know that the evaluation against the Duque Administration will be devastating.

For this reason, they aspire to get out of the discussion of the Government's evaluation and move the entire debate to the usual issues: abortion, equal marriage and women's rights.

The intention of these radical sectors to have their own list for the congress, as well as the only presidential candidate in the first round, allows several conclusions to be drawn.

The first is that they leave the Uribe coalition, which leaves the Democratic Center and former President Uribe even weaker.

The second conclusion is that the right will go, at least, in three consultations in the month of March 2022. One in the center right;

another, between Uribismo and some allies;

and the third is that of the Christian movements.

The third conclusion is that these parties could achieve an important force and would jeopardize several of the rights that Colombian society has won, it would be a typical factor of an indispensable minority in a democracy, where for any government coalition they are important.

Ultimately, they will have great blackmail or veto power.

Finally, by 2022 there will be a fairly strong clash of society models.

Well, everything indicates that the progressive forces would achieve the largest bench in the history of the country, about 35, and the Christian parties would also achieve their most important bench, it could be 15. A true train crash.

With the departure of these churches from the right-wing coalition, the Uribismo consultation would lose more than a million votes, which puts them in trouble when it comes to showing electoral strength in March.

So, two questions arise.

The first is where Uribe will seek to replace those votes or with what force.

The second question is about the impact of these radical right forces on the country's rights agenda in the coming years.

These churches look to Brazil as the example of electoral power they want to reach.

In any case, these aspirations collide with a young population derived from

the

demographic

boom

of a few years ago and which has been on the electoral roll for a couple of years.

These youth sectors mostly prefer progressive proposals.

The truth is that the Colombian electoral map of 2022 will be very different from that of recent decades.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-04-13

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