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Political Radicalism in Colombia: Electoral Dynamics of 1962 and 1964*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Kenneth F. Johnson
Kenneth F. Johnson*
Affiliation:
Colorado State University and University of Denver
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Extract

Who is to blame when the political rhythm of an organized society slips into atrophy and chaos? This enigmatic question towers in the background of recent Colombian history. A country of relative political stability since the birth of Liberalism in the 1930's, Colombia's political life was suddenly rent in 1948 by a horrendous bloodletting which threatened to raze Bogotá and plunged the nation into anarchy. The real villain, wrote Vernon Fluharty, was the system itself. Although the civil war proportions of the violence that followed the bogotazo were ended during the military government of Gustavo Rojas Pinilla (1953-57), a fierce sequence of guerrilla activities continued to plague the countryside. Much of the violence was precipitated by young men who, having deserted their primary groups after the assassination of Gaitán, carried on the war against humanity as a way of life, often in the absence of any ostensible political motive or economic gain.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Inter-American Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , January 1965 , pp. 15 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1965

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Footnotes

*

This paper is based, in part, on a larger study financed by the Ford Foundation and the Center for Latin American Studies at UCLA. The author wishes to thank Russell Fitzgibbon for his guidance and criticism of the study.

References

1 See Fluharty, Vernon, Dance of the Millions (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1957)Google Scholar.

2 See Giraldo, Roberto Pineda, El impacto de la violencia en el Tolima; el caso de el Llíbano (Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 1960)Google Scholar.

3 Martz, John D., Colombia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1962), p. 272.Google Scholar

4 See Martz, Colombia, especially Chapters 16 and 17.

5 El Tiempo, May 7, 1962; in a telephone interview with Rojas Pinilla the day after the election, the editor of El Tiempo was told of an invention perfected by Rojas to prevent electoral fraud. The paper carried this caption “Máquina contra fraude ‘inventa’ Rojas”.

6 Colombian political observers explained to the writer that the purpose of the plebiscite was to serve as a confidence vote for the National Front under the assumption that the Pact of Sitges would be null if the coalition candidate failed to receive a plurality.

7 These are official election results as published by La Nueva Prensa, No. 56 (May 26-June 1, 1962), pp. 34-35. (Congressional elections were held in April of 1962.)

8 La Nueva Prensa, May 26-June 1, 1962, pp. 34-35.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid., p. 5.

12 El Tiempo, May 7, 1962, p. 13. What may appear to be voter apathy must be taken in the light of two salient facts about Colombian voting behavior; in the first place, rural violence discourages voting and, second, Colombian women traditionally have refused to vote on the grounds that it is not a properly feminine thing to do.

13 During the preparatory stages of the trial of Rojas Pinilla before the Senate in 1959, the government was obliged to declare a state of siege several times to protect not only itself but Rojas as well. For an excellent discussion of these events see Martz, pp. 279-285.

14 La Calle, April 29, 1962, p. 4.

15 La Calle, April 29, 1962, p. 4.

16 Ibid.

17 La Voz de la Democracia (semanario del Partido Comunista de Colombia), No. 174 (May 5, 1962), p. 1.

18 Ibid.

19 La Nueva Presna, April 18, 1962, p. 15.

20 Alianza Popular, April 27-May 3, 1962, p. 2.

21 Ibid. On Sunday, April 30, 1962, Rojas spoke in Bogotá at the Parque de los Martires and openly urged a return to military rule.

22 Handbills by Carlos Lleras Restrepo's Liberal Party headquarters in Bogotá before the election. No dates.

23 Ibid.

24 From a speech by Luis Emiro Valencia, Bogotá, April 9, 1962.

25 Visión, April 3, 1964, PD. 14-15.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid. p. 14.

28 Ibid.

29 Elsewhere I have dealt with dimensions of political alienation and aggression in Colombia as well as in other Latin American countries. Cf. Johnson, Kenneth F., “Causal Factors in Latin American Political Instability,” The Western Political Quarterly, September, 1964, pp. 432–446 Google Scholar. Published figures of the Colombian government list the annual share per capita in the gross national product for urban workers at approximately 300 dollars, a telling index to wealth distribution and want satisfaction. Cf. Plan General de Desarrollo Económico y Social, primera parte, Consejo Nacional de Política Económica y Planeación (Bogotá, 1961).

30 Visión, March 6, 1964, p. 15.