What is at stake in the elections of March 13 in Colombia

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(CNN Spanish) --

On March 13, the legislative elections in Colombia will be held, in which Colombians will elect the representatives of the new Congress of the Republic, and some will be able to participate in the presidential consultations to choose their candidate.

On March 13, almost 39 million voters throughout the country are called to vote in more than 12,500 polling stations throughout the country, according to the National Registry of Colombia. 

What is at stake in the March 13 elections.

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Senate

Colombians will vote to renew the Senate whose votes are from the national constituency, that is, the candidates will obtain votes throughout the country.

In total, the Senate is made up of 108 representatives, but on November 13, 107 senators will be elected as follows:

- 100 senators and senators elected by national constituency.

- 2 senators for the special indigenous constituency.

- 5 senators belonging to the FARC (Common Alternative Revolutionary Force) party, as agreed at the signing of the peace agreements signed in 2016 (those seats are only for the periods 2018-2022 and 2022-2026).

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Senator 108 is the presidential candidate who obtains the second highest number of votes in the presidential elections for the presidential term that begins in August 2022, in this case.

For these elections there are 974 candidates on 16 lists for the Senate throughout the country and 23 candidates on 7 lists for the special indigenous constituency, according to data from the Registrar's Office.

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House of Representatives

Representatives to the House are elected every four years.

On March 13, 172 positions will also be elected for this corporation by territorial constituency.

That is, each department, as well as Bogotá, will choose their candidates.

There is also an international constituency for Colombians abroad.

For these elections there are 1,562 candidates on 268 lists for the Chamber throughout the country, according to data from the Registrar's Office.

Among them: 974 candidates throughout the country, 23 candidates for the indigenous lists, 974 Afro-descendant candidates and 23 from the international constituency.

Citrep

The victims of the armed conflict will elect their representatives on March 13.

167 municipalities of the Special Transitory Circumscriptions of Peace, (Citrep) will elect 16 Peace Seats.

According to the Registry, there are 406 candidates.

According to the Registrar's Office, there are 407 candidates for this constituency of victims in 204 lists.

Internal consultations of March 13

The March 13 elections have an additional component in the country's democratic game: not only will Congress be elected, which according to its final composition will be key in the new government that begins on August 7, 2022, but also the presidential candidates that May elections will be held.

Unlike past elections, where the parties registered their candidates, in Colombia it is increasingly common to form alliances by political spectrum to elect presidential candidates.

In this way, in March the candidates for the presidency will be known and the final stretch begins to meet the new president of Colombia.

Team Consultation for Colombia

On the one hand, there is the right-wing consultation with the Team for Colombia, which includes candidates from the Conservative Party, the Mira Party (a Christian party), as well as three important players: the former mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa, for the Party of the OR;

the former mayor of Medellín, Federico Guitérrez, who is an ally of Uribismo, and the former mayor of Barranquilla, Alex Char, who is very popular in his hometown, but has refused to participate in presidential debates this campaign.

Likewise, Char was accused by former congresswoman Aída Merlano, according to statements made to the magazine

.

Merlano said that Char—while he was mayor of Barranquilla—financed her campaign for the House and had an extramarital affair with her.

Merlano, a fugitive from justice in Colombia, was convicted of aggravated conspiracy to commit a crime and corruption of the voter.

Regarding the accusations of corruption that Merlano made to Colombian media, Char denied financing to Merlano's campaign, saying that he did not give money to campaigns of other parties, and even less so as mayor of Barranquilla.

And about his extramarital relationship with Merlano, he agreed to have her "long before" 2018, he said it was a "mistake", as he told the Colombian media.

Hope Center Consultation

Then there are the Center candidates.

In this consultation, five candidates who identify with the center: who say they are neither with Álvaro Uribe nor with Gustavo Petro, the extremes of the ideological spectrum.

There is Juan Manuel Galán, former Liberal senator and son of the Liberal caudillo Luis Carlos Galán Sarmiento, assassinated by drug mafias in 1989.

There is also the former presidential candidate Sergio Fajardo, of the Independent Social Alliance, who according to many, in the 2018 presidential elections represented a path away from the polarization in 2018 that Duque and Petro represented.

Fajardo was very close to going to the second round against Duque, as Petro beat him by 261,000 votes.

Other candidates who are in this consultation are the former Minister of Health of the government of Juan Manuel Santos, Alejandro Gaviria, who until very recently was rector of the Universidad de Los Andes and now is emerging as a strong card of the Center, which could compete with Fajardo.

Also present are Senator Jorge Enrique Robledo, a prominent figure on the left, and Carlos Amaya, a former governor of the department of Boyacá and a political boss in the region who began his political career as a student leader in 2008.

A strong opponent will come out of this consultation who will carry the flag of not being aligned with the extremes, a discourse that resonates in many sectors, they say they are tired of years of right-wing political fights vs.

left.

But as the Colombian journalist María Jimena Duzán pointed out in her most recent column in

magazine , the Centro Esperanza coalition had a "debacle" because its members "didn't gamble for the construction of an agenda for change," but for an agenda of "egos".

The Historic Pact: The Left Coalition

The main candidate of this coalition is the former presidential candidate and leftist leader Gustavo Petro, who came second in the 2018 presidential elections by a difference of 12% against Duque (who will end his presidential term on August 7, 2022).

Petro represents the solid option for a large sector of the country, especially for the left, according to the most recent Yanhass polls from February 2022: there he leads with 27% of the vote intention ahead of all the candidates, followed by the blank vote (19%) and Rodolfo Hernández, an independent candidate originally from Santander, in the northeast of the country.

And in the coalition, Petro is followed by Francia Márquez, a black leader and activist for the environment who has gained great strength for her speech for work from the territories that suffer violence, racial justice, women's rights and The conservation of the environment.

Others who make up this consultation are the former governor of Nariño, Camilo Romero, of the Green Party, Arelis Uriana and Alfredo Saade, a Christian leader from the Caribbean Coast who supports Gustavo Petro.

These three consultations will define the countdown to the presidential elections on May 29.

The candidates who emerge victorious here will begin a definitive campaign to confront Óscar Iván Zuluaga, candidate of the Democratic Center (the ruling party, led by Álvaro Uribe), and the independent Rodolfo Hernández, and it will be decided whether Colombia continues to be governed by the right , as it has historically done, if it goes towards the center or makes a turn to the left.

Elections in Colombia