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This is because the Democratic Center, a community led by former President Álvaro Uribe, made a strong bet on the candidacy of US President Donald Trump and his Republican Party, to the point that some prominent members of Uribismo were pointed out, had made moves in the United States against the Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
But that was not all. Even former President Juan Manuel Santos assured that spokesmen for the Government of Iván Duque they called on the Trump campaign to see “how they can help”, prompting an irate complaint from the US Ambassador to Colombia, Philip Goldberg, who urged Colombian politicians not to get involved in their country’s presidential elections.
Among the most representative Uribistas pointed out of wanting to influence the US elections there is Senator María Fernanda Cabal, who has defended her position as the simple political expression to which every citizen has the right. This Wednesday, the expectation for the results in those elections rose when President Trump, as he had already said, announced, without knowing the official result of the elections, that he was the winner, that there was fraud and that he will take the count to the Supreme Court.
Analysts like Ariel Ávila spin thinner by pointing out that “People close to […] Uribe would have helped build Trump’s speech, in which he linked candidate Biden and former President Obama with former President Santos and with the peace agreement with the former FARC guerrilla ”.
“They were questioning not only the peace process, but its very legality,” Avila says in his column in Spain’s El País. “The reelection campaign [de Trump] he also adopted very well the discourse of the ultra-left and Castro-Chavism. The Republican president even trilled that ‘Biden is a proven Castro puppet.’
For all these reasons, for Ávila, in the background, “Uribe’s bet is risky, because taking sides could lead to a ‘punishment’ of a possible Biden government ”. But, even if Trump wins, Avila says, the Democratic Party “could block initiatives for Colombia.”
Uribismo’s support for Trump “is to jeopardize bipartisan support” for Colombia, Avila warns. “But, above all, it shows the short-term mentality of the Duque administration. It is as if they did not understand that in democracies governments alternate and, in the end, the bill will arrive. At the moment uribismo grits its teeth at the results in the United States”.
Arlene Tickner, professor at the Faculty of International Studies at the Universidad del Rosario, warned in Caracol News that Colombia is “more important than other Latin American countries, a region that, in general, for the US has never been so important ”, although the“ close alliance ”that the two countries have had“ makes Colombia a slightly different case ”.
“I think that, at this moment, What the Colombian Government and sectors of the Democratic Center that have participated in some activities in favor of Trump are betting on is a kind of ‘quid pro quo’ [‘algo a cambio de algo’ o ‘una cosa por la otra’], in the event that Trump wins the state of Florida, and this would consist of maintaining a close relationship and loyalties on the part of Trump, “added the internationalist in the news.
However, he warned that what is known about Trump so far is that “he has been a very volatile president in his internal and external policies, and does not recognize friends. In fact, it has moved away from America’s historic allies in regions like Europe. This volatility makes the strategy of betting on his triumph very risky ”.
“In the event that Biden wins, we know more or less what Colombia could expect“Tickner specified. “He is an official who from Congress and the vice presidency has been participating in different key moments of the bilateral relationship, such as Plan Colombia and the peace process. Perhaps he knows better, as a result of this experience, the problems of the country and he will be more open to returning the relationship to the bipartisan tone that it has had in the past and that has really been the foundation of the solidity of the bilateral relationship until now ”.
Asked if the demonstrations of some members of the Democratic Center in favor of the Republican campaign could affect the relationship between Colombia and the United States, should Biden win, Tickner replied: “They do affect, because, in itself, the relationship between the Duque Government and the Democratic Party in Congress at this time is a tense relationship., as a result of issues such as the assassinations of leaders and demobilized persons, and what some representatives consider the lack of positive progress in the implementation of the peace accords ”.
“So, If the Democrats win the House, the Senate and the White House, difficulties are to be expected in the recovery of the bipartisan tone that has characterized the relationship in the past ”, warned the teacher. “And there is a close antecedent which is that of Álvaro Uribe’s government, which did basically the same thing: it placed all its efforts in the relationship with the Republicans and then made the congress suffer from democratic control with the approval of the FTA, which basically many considered a democratic punishment for the distance that Uribe had had from that party. I think something similar can be expected if, above all, the Democrats have their majorities in Congress.”.
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