Editorial, EL ESPECTADOR, September 29, 2024
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN Volunteer Translator)
The re-election of presidents, governors, and mayors is a bad idea for the country. It’s not a discussion that depends on the person that occupies the President’s Office or the different municipal and departmental offices at any given moment, but rather it’s a problem of political culture. Yes, other countries have the concept. Yes, there are systems where the leaders can be re-elected for several terms, and that doesn’t make them less democratic. Nevertheless, because of the way that our institutions are designed, and because of what we have learned about how Messianic imagination and concentration of power operate in this country, Colombia must distance itself from any legal modification that would incentivize the abuses and the deification of political leaders.
The idea of introducing a bill to amend the Constitution to allow immediate re-election, not just of a president, but of mayors and governors, is hovering. Even though it’s coming from the Historic Pact Party, the Gustavo Petro administration has said that they have no interest in staying in power perpetually. We think that, in spite of the rejection by their natural leader, there are Members of Congress who are insisting. We don’t want to speculate on the reasons for that insistence; we would rather concentrate more thoroughly on the debate. Re-election is a concept that would do damage to our democracy.
We don’t have to search for imaginary scenarios; Colombia has already lived through it. First with President Álvaro Uribe Vélez, who took advantage of his massive popularity and the corruption of some of his former Ministers to purchase a constitutional change that allowed him to serve one more term. He would have run for a third term if the Constitutional Court had not intervened courageously. Anyway, the institutional damage had already been done. The terms of the entities of control, intended to be for one presidential term and to guarantee equilibrium of power, have lost their clarity. The Statute of Guarantees was unable to prevent the one who represented the government from using all his power to get re-elected and promote his friends. Then, in an “ironic twist of fate”, it was Uribism itself that would complain about how a President has too much power as he tries to get re-elected when they were confronting Juan Manuel Santos and all the machinery of his national agreement.
Beyond surnames, the problem of re-election is one of institutional design. It favors concentration of power, it places public servants in constant campaign mode, it takes spaces away from the opposition, it places a mantle of doubt over the uses made of tax revenue, and it favors certain political dynasties. If entities in the territories are at the mercy of those clans in spite of the fact that they can’t be re-elected, what would that be like if the law did permit their re-election?
For re-election to be acceptable in Colombia, we would have to reconsider our entire Constitution, and that is not what is being proposed. The current bill arises, as usually happens, from the love for a particular leader, the surname of the moment who, indeed, may be very popular, but democracy is not only the law of the majorities. We understand the frustration, that four years is a short time to reform Colombia, but the system that we have built is designed to avoid abuse of power, and to rid us of the idea that only one savior can lead in an acceptable manner. We have to construct political systems that will transcend the surnames, that have differing representatives, and above all, be a system in which ideas are the essence.