00:00And now in the context of the advance to the presidential run of elections of Alliance for Life candidate Iván
00:07Zapeda and far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella, we welcome Iván Tellez, international law expert, to help us analyze
00:15this scene.
00:17Hello, Iván. Welcome to Telesur English.
00:21Hello, Lorena. Good morning.
00:23Hello, how are you? Well, our first question is on last Sunday. Colombia saw a record turnout in the presidential
00:30elections with nearly 2.4 million more voters than in previous elections.
00:35So what do you think is the reason for this increase in this voter turnout? And how would you rate
00:43last Sunday's elections?
00:48Well, I think that we can attribute those new votes, and that's nearly 2 million votes more than the past
01:10elections,
01:11to the confidence that in some sectors of Colombian society, President Petro has been able to grow within the people.
01:25So I'm talking about the confidence and also the attention to some sectors of the population that have been historically
01:38unattended,
01:39which are their needs and even just their basic dignity and the basic to be taken into account because they
01:55haven't been in the political agenda
01:57under this, over this 200 years of the Republican state of Colombia.
02:06I'm talking about, for example, I'm talking about, for example, those that were beneficiaries of the increase, sorry, of the
02:15minimum wage, for example,
02:18from the health sectors, those people, the people that are above 60 or 65 years old that do not have
02:29access to their lifelong pension, for example.
02:35So those have been profound reforms. I'm just talking about some of them, some of the crucial and strongest reforms
02:48and changes and public policy
02:51that under this current government that under this current government, the state has taken.
02:58And I think that those are sectors that feel completely taken into the account of the public policy of the
03:11state.
03:12And when you reward population with the recognition, just the basic recognition that provides them with voice
03:24and not only with voice, with the power of deciding and the power of decision over the matters that matter
03:34to them.
03:35So in this case, I think that's one of the biggest wins of those and maybe the main explanation for
03:46how this social and structural reforms
03:49under President Petro that the country has undergone resemble and have a stronger impact within those sectors of society.
04:00Right. So I think that's one of the reasons.
04:05However, we cannot underscore the fact that De Las Priega had a surprising vote.
04:16We thought that we thought that maybe the Uribismo will earn more voters and more votes than what they did
04:25yesterday.
04:26So I think that this comes as a surprise.
04:29I don't think that this can be held isolately because there's a very strong right-wing trend across the region.
04:43There has been a proven interference in Colombia's elections by the right-wing sectors of the region, of the Latin
04:55American society.
04:57And I'm talking about other governments as we already know that.
05:00So I think that there's another thing that we cannot underscore because it means that there are some or there
05:07were some voters,
05:09new captive voters or just voters that moved from the center or from the Uribismo to this far-right proposal
05:18that De Las Priega has.
05:20So this reveals the high polarization that Colombia has.
05:25This is a historical polarization.
05:27This is not new.
05:29But it becomes as new when we think about the new voters that historically the left had won yesterday.
05:40And, of course, we have to take a closer look at how the right-wing and the far-right-wing
05:47is gaining some of these new votes.
05:54And now we're looking ahead of the upcoming results next in June 21st.
06:00And I want to ask you, what do you believe is truly at stake for Colombia in this election?
06:09Well, that is a profound question because there is, I think, a binary model of the country.
06:19On one side, we can understand that Colombia has been historically, again, fighting against this common enemy
06:32that has been the armed conflict and its actors.
06:37This was the motive of the politicians during almost 60 years.
06:44And the fact that there has been a real armed conflict in the country
06:53derives in how people feel about security issues
06:58and how people feel about, for example, belligerent groups and other armed groups and criminal groups
07:08and, of course, drug dealing groups.
07:10So I think this model or these issues, these facts call for the securitization of the state
07:22and how the state tries to reveal itself as a structure that is capable of providing this security
07:34and trying to alleviate the concerns that people have towards these issues.
07:42However, there is another model coming up that has never been stated,
07:47that has never been lived in the country,
07:50and that is what President Petro brought to the country.
07:53And it's a new vision of the state, of the role of the state,
07:58and how the state can work within the current economic system,
08:03but even within this, without not changing anything of the neoliberal world order,
08:12can work to provide and to redistribute wealth
08:17and to provide dignity to the most vulnerable sectors of society.
08:24Also, let's take into account that Colombia is one of the most unequal states or countries of the world.
08:31So I think there is another social model of the state,
08:35and I think this is a stake.
08:37And the social model of the state also comes along with the fact of peace,
08:42because peace and the origins of the armed conflict in Colombia
08:48come because of inequality and the uneven access to political participation,
08:56to state participation, and of course, poverty.
08:59So I think that one of the strongest reasons
09:03that provide the sectors that are supporting President Petro's work
09:15and, of course, Iván C. Pérez' continuity with this work
09:18come along with the fact that
09:22those social and structural reforms of the state
09:26also attend to some of the structural causes of the armed conflict.
09:32So it's a complete social transformation over here.
09:36And on the other side,
09:39just going back to the state that has always been up front,
09:45and that is the state that comes with the militarization,
09:48the securitization, the criminalization of poverty,
09:52and the high sanctioning and the high violence
09:55towards those most forgotten sectors of society.
10:00So I think that goes back to the same model of state
10:07that has not been useful for the whole number of the population of Colombia.
10:17And now I want to ask you,
10:19how could the outcome of these Colombia's elections influence politics across Latin America?
10:27Well, Colombia is one of the biggest, strongest countries in the region.
10:34And we're talking about extension, territorial extension, and also its population.
10:42The fact that it has the access, for example, to both oceans.
10:47And also the fact that Colombia has been one of the strongest allies of the United States
10:54in the hemisphere for over 100 years or more.
10:58So Colombia holds a huge geopolitical weight in the region.
11:05And that means that whatever happens in Colombia will have an impact on the other states.
11:12And even mostly on the states that are just sides, as Ecuador or Venezuela, for example.
11:23We have known and there's a public recognition
11:29that Ecuador has been interfering in Colombia's elections for the past months
11:36in the way it has behaved towards the current president
11:40and with some of the right candidates, the right-wing candidates.
11:45So that's one issue that has been very, very plausible in this interference.
11:52However, we've seen as well that the United States has not been completely impartial towards these elections.
12:00We know what hasn't happened between the two presidents the year before.
12:06I'm talking about what happened between President Petra and President Trump.
12:10And also, I think that the fact that whatever Colombia decides
12:16and the turn that Colombia takes will have an impact
12:20because it will, in a way, take some decisions that affect the region,
12:28but that Colombia has the leadership.
12:31And I'm talking about international forums.
12:33I'm talking about the Organization of the American States.
12:36I'm talking about the UN or CELAC or other common organizations,
12:43as, for example, the Andean community as well.
12:47So this is something that will have an impact regarding how, for example, ties,
12:53commercial ties, and even political ties evolve.
13:01And also, for example, regarding Ecuador,
13:04the fact that the bilateral relations have been so deeply affected
13:11by these ideological differences and how this has an impact,
13:16a direct impact on population, on the economy of the day-by-day economy of the population,
13:24and migration, of course, migration tendencies,
13:28how commerce closes or opens.
13:32So I think whatever happens in Colombia will have a strong impact
13:38in how states currently behave toward the state
13:42and how some international trends or regional trends
13:45become more or less effective or less stronger or more stronger
13:51regarding the voice that Colombia needs.
13:59Yvonne, thank you so much for your time for TeleCity English
14:02and also for your very important analysis on this situation
14:06that is clearly a matter to all Latin America and the Caribbean.
14:11Thank you so much for your time.
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