Gwen Burnyeat is a junior research fellow at Merton College, Oxford, and the author of two books about Colombia.
IN one of the many videos circulating on social media of people celebrating the results of Colombia’s presidential election run-off on 19 June, a man bursts from a door onto a small concrete balcony: ‘The first Black vice-president! First Black vice-president, son of a bitch! Viva Colombia! Viva Francia! Thank you, God!’ Two teenage girls run to hug him, wiping away their...
The Colombian presidential election last month was won by Iván Duque of the Democratic Centre (DC) party with 54 per cent of the vote. Álvaro Uribe Vélez – the party’s leader, the former president of Colombia (2002-10) and currently a right-wing senator – couldn’t run himself because he has served the two terms permitted by the 1991 constitution,...
It took four years for the Colombian government and the Farc – the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – to reach the peace agreement signed earlier this year. President Juan Manuel Santos insisted that putting the deal to a referendum would give it legitimacy and silence the far-right party Centro Democrático, which is masterminded by the former president Álvaro...
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