On Wednesday, the Universidad de la Sabana and the National Federation of Departments (FND) hosted the Governors’ Summit, a rare event that convened almost all of the frontrunners in Colombia’s presidential race.
Paloma Valencia, Abelardo de la Espriella, Sergio Fajardo, Roy Barreras, and Claudia López fielded questions from regional authorities about how they planned to tackle problems in Colombia’s provinces.
While Iván Cepeda, the leftist favorite, was scheduled to attend, his team pulled out at the last minute, fuelling the candidate’s reputation for being media-shy.
Early on Wednesday morning, governors and their aides began filtering into the heavily policed event in Chía, a municipality north of Bogotá.
The FND selected questions from governors which were then posed to candidates by the two moderators: El Tiempo Director Andrés Mompotes and his counterpart at radio station La FM, Juan Lozano.
The main themes of the day were tackling insecurity and armed groups, investing in regional development, and mechanisms to improve provincial representation.
For some governors, the event was an opportunity to redress an acute crisis; Erasmo Zuleta, who heads the local government in Córdoba, used the forum to highlight the ongoing effects of disastrous floods which began earlier this year.
“The emergency didn’t pass, nor did the tragedy. The floodwaters receded, leaving behind widespread damage; they took lives, homes, crops, and material possessions,” Zuleta told The Bogotá Post.
“Now more than ever, we need greater solidarity to recover from the damage,” continued the Governor, in a bid for help from the national government.
Another recurring theme was prison reform, following a recent scandal over a concert that took place in the Itagüí prison in Antioquia.
Abelardo de la Espriella, the firebrand criminal defense attorney and right-wing frontrunner, used the opportunity to push his tough-on-crime proposal.
“In Colombia, there are no prisons—there are universities of crime,” said de la Espriella, who took aim at the National Penitentiary and Prison Institute (INPEC), which he described as “a den of thieves.”
The candidate added that Colombia should look to El Salvador to develop its incarceration model, praising dictator Nayib Bukele’s draconian mass imprisonment efforts that have dramatically reduced crime and drawn condemnation from rights’ groups.
Security, more broadly, was also high on the agenda, as Colombia grapples with a surge in violence related to illegal armed groups.
“Today we are living in the grip of insecurity. They want to drag us back into the abyss we thought we had left behind,” railed Paloma Valencia, the candidate for the right-wing Centro Democrático (Democratic Center) party.
Fears of insecurity affecting democratic processes have overshadowed the elections, with the United Nations issuing a warning earlier this year that armed groups could disrupt the vote.
The Valle del Cauca department has been one of the most heavily affected by the armed conflict, with its capital, Cali, rocked by a wave of bomb attacks by rebel groups in the past year.
But its Governor, Dilian Francisca Toro, offered reassurances in conversation with The Bogotá Post: “We ensure that in every municipality and across all regions, law enforcement is present so that we can have free, democratic elections where there is no restriction whatsoever on the ability to vote.”
Toro also cited the elections on March 8 as an example of the success of security planning: “In Valle del Cauca we really had very peaceful elections, and now, God willing, we will have them again.”
Amid the mounting threat by armed groups, candidates De la Espriella and Valencia vow an iron fist, using military force to crush rebel forces. They model themselves after former right-wing President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010), who teamed up with the U.S. to launch a total war on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
But leftist Iván Cepeda highlights the human rights abuses perpetrated by the government during that period, in which thousands of innocent civilians lost their lives. He proposes to continue the current administration’s Paz Total – or Total Peace – policy of negotiating with armed groups.
But Cepeda missed the opportunity to make his case to the public, fuelling criticism by his opponents.
De la Espriella has repeatedly called on Cepeda to agree to a debate, but the leftist candidate has yet to accept.
With less than two months before the May 31st election, there are increasingly few opportunities for the candidates to make their case before the public.