Dec 11th 2021

SEVERAL RECENT elections in Latin America have seen the collapse, or at least the defeat, of the moderate centre. It was true of Chiles presidential election last month, of Perus earlier this year and of those in Brazil and Colombia in 2018. Will it be true of the next big election in the region, in Colombia in May? There are reasons to think that, in this case, a victory for the centre would not just be especially beneficial, but also that it might come about.

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That is not the conventional forecast. Many analysts believe that next years contest will be a repeat, in reverse, of the previous one. In a run-off in 2018 Ivn Duque, a protg of lvaro Uribe, a former president of the populist right, defeated Gustavo Petro, a populist of the left, by 56% to 44%. In a poll of voting intentions by Invamer, published this week, Mr Petro is way out in front with 42%, ahead of Sergio Fajardo of the centre-left (with 19%) and a host of also-rans. Mr Petro would easily defeat any opponent in a run-off, the pollster thinks.

Mr Duque won in 2018 because of fear of Mr Petro, a former guerrilla who was a fan of Hugo Chvez in Venezuela. But he also benefited from Mr Uribes campaign against a peace agreement in 2016 that ended half a century of war between the state and the FARC guerrillas. The centre was identified with the accord, which many Colombians thought too lenient. It was hurt, too, by a failure to unite behind a single candidate. That allowed Mr Petro to pip Mr Fajardo, an academic and innovative former mayor of Medelln, by just 250,000 votes (out of more than 19m) to reach the run-off.

This time Mr Petro looks stronger than in 2018. Mr Uribe is not the force he once was. Mr Duques government has been mediocre and is unpopular, and was shaken by weeks of strikes and sometimes violent protests earlier this year. With no serious rivals on the hard left, Mr Petro has spent the past four years campaigning. A former senator and an undistinguished mayor of Bogot, he has very simplistic ideas but he works politically very, very hard, says Malcolm Deas, a British historian of Colombia. Several opportunistic political hustlers of the right have declared their support for his candidacy because they think he will win.

But it is early days. According to the Invamer polls fine print, 43% of respondents have yet to declare a preference. Mr Petro still scares many middle-class voters. The centre looks more organised than in 2018. Mr Fajardo and five other candidates of the centre-left have formed a Coalition of Hope and agreed to face each other in a primary in conjunction with the legislative election in March. On the centre-right the Coalition of Experience unites five presidential hopefuls, including several former mayors, in a similar primary. Mr Uribes nominee, scar Ivn Zuluaga, who lost the 2014 election, may or may not join them. But he is a weaker candidate than Mr Duque was. Miguel Silva, a political consultant, reckons around 14m Colombians will choose to vote in one of the simultaneous primaries and expects these to be divided roughly equally between hard-left, centre-right and centre-left. That could change the momentum of the race.

The run-off is thus likely to pit Mr Petro against a candidate either of the centre-right or centre-left. This time the peace agreement is unlikely to be a big issue. Colombians hate the FARC but they like peace, says Mr Deas. They want a new political agenda. That could involve security against criminal gangs, better public education and a return to economic growth (something Mr Petros protectionism and his opposition to mining and oil are unlikely to achieve).

So the centre has an opportunity. To seize it requires not just a clear programme but a break with the unpopular status quo and connecting emotionally with Colombians. Mr Uribe mobilised fear of the guerrillas; Mr Petro channels the kind of rage against the establishment that was expressed in the protests.

In a recent book Mauricio Garca Villegas, a Colombian political philosopher, argues that his countrys long history of armed conflict has been driven by a political culture which exalted tribal emotions, of nation, party, class and religion, which turned adversaries into enemies and in which we tend to disqualify too easily those who think differently. In Colombia, he concludes, the real contrast is not between the radicals of each extremebut between these and the moderates. To prevail, the centre will have to tap into more peaceful emotionsof unity, solidarity and hope for a better future.

Read more from Bello, our columnist on Latin America:

Politicians are sparring over colonial history in Latin America (Dec 4th)Latin America waits for tourists to return (Nov 27th 2021)Will electoral defeat favour moderation in Argentina? (Nov 20th 2021)

This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline "Between hope and experience"

Continued here:

Despite the polls, a centrist could win Colombia's election in May - The Economist