The Colombian congressman Miguel Polo Polo caused an immense amount of controversy last week when he filmed himself throwing away wellington boots that were part of an art exhibition.
The boots were decorated as commemorations to the falsos positivos, over 6,000 innocent young Colombians who were assassinated by the police and military. Their corpses were then dressed in guerilla uniforms – sometimes with boots on the wrong feet – in order to receive bonuses for combat kills during the internal conflict.
Unsurprisingly, the act provoked an enormous outpouring of anger across the country, which is precisely what he wanted. There is no sensible political point to his actions, no philosophy, no vision of the future.
This is simply trolling leftists, disingenuously punching down at an easy target. That’s not to say, however, that there’s no strategy to what he’s doing.
Sadly, there’s certainly a market for this sort of politics in Colombia. While he’s been roundly condemned by the media and commentators from all sides, that’s not been quite the same in online echo chambers.
Following, consciously or not, the Trump-Muskian model of ‘owning the libs’ as an end in of itself, this sort of posturing wins followers and helps build support for rightist actors.
He’s engaging in post-truth politics too, flat-out denying that the falsos positivos even happened. It’s worth remembering that the number is no guess – this was the number that the JEP (Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz) gave in their report on the issue.
This act was a step too far – and critically was a swing at the wrong target – for even his hardcore supporters. He’s read the room wrong, to say the least. However, he’s unlikely to get cancelled for it and he’ll certainly be back.
Along with fellow Centro Democratico member Maria Fernanda Cabal, his role is simply to take swings at anyone on the left. It represents a dangerous and effective type of politics – one that has been successful here in the past and recently globally.
It’s important to remember that former president Santos’ peace deal with the FARC had limited public support and a mano dura for crime – both organised and petty – is popular with many.
Caudillo politics are never too far away in the Americas, and Colombia is no exception. Polo Polo plays a key role here – this type of trolling emboldens those who want a hardman in power and sets the scene for them to arrive.
More critically, his antics are very useful in that he has the freedom to play to the gallery. He can say these outrageous things and be officially disowned by the more sanitised candidates, with a nod and a wink to the base he energises.
This trolling can also act as a dead cat issue – distracting the political discourse away from less comfortable matters and kicking up so much dust that other things can slip under the radar.
Who are the Madres de Soacha?
It’s hard to imagine any group of people in Colombia less deserving of this treatment. The Madres de Soacha are a group of women that are fighting to learn the full truth about their assassinated children.
The organisation they created, Mafapo (Madres de Falso Positivos), has been fighting for over a decade and a half to try and win justice for their children. That has been a long and gruelling struggle against entrenched forces.
However, they have never given up. They have certainly succeeded in shining a light on the case – with the number 6,402 frequently seen around the city as a reference to the falsos positivos scandal.
Most striking is the contrast between the dignity of these women through years of painful and often frustrating struggle with that of Polo Polo making a crass statement for social media views.
What next for Polo Polo?
Miguel Polo Polo is best described as a polemical politician. His backstory is unusual – from a poor costeño family to online influencer critic of Petro to the Congress of the nation with the support of influential rightwinger Maria Fernanda Cabal.
Now, he sits in the Colombian lower House of parliament as a representative of the Afro-Colombian community and dedicates his life to professionally trolling the government and leftists in general.
He (often justifiably) complains of racism when it is useful for him, yet is capable of pivoting so far away that the community he was elected to represent withdrew their support for him.
It would be nice to think that Polo Polo will fade away into obscurity, but there is little chance of that happening in the short term. He speaks to a certain type of rightist and there are plenty of people that will support any dig at the left.
And after all, he’s largely outside the traditional media. He’s unlikely to get a job writing columns at Espectador – he simply sings directly to his choir and occasionally roars into the mainstream with one of these stunts.
There is, simply put, nothing to cancel him from. Motions against him have already been tabled, of course, but that simply fuels his persecuted outsider status and allows him to wang on about threats to free speech.
By this time next year the candidates will be jockeying into position for the 2026 congressional and presidential campaigns. Polo Polo won’t make those lists, but if given enough oxygen he’ll certainly be fanning the flames of some ugly discourse.
It already looks like it’s shaping up to be an unpleasant run for the presidency and this sort of politics-through-trolling won’t help things at all. However, this month’s result in the USA elections suggests that it can be effective. Let’s hope that’s not the case in Colombia.
