Colombia's new left hero

This weekend, as all eyes in Argentina were focussed on elections that would essentially change nothing, not even the president's surname, elsewhere on the continent voters were reshaping a country's future.

The victory of leftwinger Samuel Moreno in mayoral elections in the Colombian capital Bogotá on Sunday meant a slap in the face for President Álvaro Uribe, who openly opposed Moreno.

Moreno beat former mayor Enrique Peñalosa with 43.7 percent to 28.5, claiming a win for the Polo Democrático Alternativo (PDA). Now that they have clinched the second most important job in the country, Colombia's leading opposition party is in an advantageous position in view of the 2010 presidential elections.

The triumph of the left is seen as a serious blow to an already troubled President Uribe. It's just a year since he had his popularity confirmed with a huge re-election victory, but since then scandals over links to the paramilitaries have damaged his image at home and abroad.

"A president supported by almost 40 congressmen now jailed and investigated for 'parapolítica' is not the best placed person to tell us which candidate, according to him, is being supported by an illegal group," wrote María Jimena Duzán, Bogotá resident and columnist for El Tiempo newspaper. She was referring to remarks made by Uribe after a website linked to a guerrilla group called for voters to support Moreno.

That deep-felt resentment for the president's handling of the elections didn't go unnoticed by a grateful PDA frontman Carlos Gaviria who also criticized Uribe for meddling. "He hoped to get ahead by placing all his eggs in one basket, but that plan backfired; now the PDA has obtained a massive victory and the president of the Republic has lost terribly."

The Colombian left, it seems, has a new hero. But who is Samuel Moreno and how did he get where he is?

Moreno owes his victory in part to a campaign which revolved around the promise to vastly improve public transport in Bogotá. Those plans include reducing the number of buses, introducing a one-ticket transport network and bold plans to build a subway, something postponed until now because of the enormous costs involved. Voters heeded those promises and they will be expecting Moreno to deliver.

Aside from grandiose plans for the city, Moreno's popularity is rooted in recent Colombian history. His grandfather was former president General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, who came to power in a coup in 1953. Popular for his social programmes directed at Colombia's poor but despised by the middle classes for his authoritarian style, he was forced to retire by the military in 1957.

General Rojas remained a powerful force in Colombian politics. He headed the Alianza Nacional Popular (ANAPO) movement that also included leftwing groups, some of which would later form the M-19 guerrilla. He ran for president in 1970 and was only just defeated, accusing the ruling party of fraud.

His daughter María Eugenia Rojas, Samuel Moreno's mother, always accompanied him during his presidency and later during the campaigning. Known in Colombia as "La Capitana," the captain, she played the part of Evita to her father's Perón and headed the generous Welfare Ministry, doling out subsidies to the poor. Loved by the working classes, even today many of Bogotá's elderly still cherish an effigy of "La Capitana" and her father in their wallet or handbag.

That background is a key component to the PDA victory in Colombia's capital of seven million inhabitants. Moreno himself acknowledged how much he relied on the family, when he unsuccessfully ran for Bogotá city council in 1986. "I thought that just by saying I was the grandson of Rojas and the son of María Eugenia I would win for sure," he admitted.

Added to the historical background, Moreno's own education was a mix of elite institutions and the family business of leftwing politics. He attended the Anglo-Colombian school in Bogotá and then studied law at the Universidad del Rosario. He then went on to gain a master's degree in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in the US. At the same time he was involved in politics, running the youth wing of his grandfather's ANAPO party. After his failed attempt at the Bogotá city council he ran for the senate and was elected to four consecutive terms between 1991 and 2006. So enamoured of politics is Moreno that he even took his wife to a political rally on their first date.

After Sunday's elections, Moreno holds his first executive office. The job of Bogotá mayor implies he has gained a foothold on the national scene. Next to Gaviria, Moreno is now the main reference of the Colombian left. Taking into account that the white-haired Gaviria is already 70, we shouldn't be surprised to see this grandson of a former dictator aiming to succeed his ancestor in 2010. Via the ballot box, of course.

(First published in the Buenos Aires Herald 30/10/2007)