Colombia’s election exposes deepening neoliberal realignment amid contested preliminary results
Original framing: “Colombia’s De La Espriella claims victory on preliminary results” — Al Jazeera
Afro-Colombian women’s organizations (e.g., *Proceso de Comunidades Negras*) report that preliminary results in their territories are often fabricated to favor extractive industries, while their leaders face assassination (e.g., María Bernarda Juajibioy in 2023). Indigenous *guardias* in Cauca have documented how electoral fraud is enabled by the same paramilitary networks that displaced them during the 2000s. The election’s framing erases these voices, instead amplifying elite narratives that frame resistance as ‘terrorism.’
Colombia’s preliminary election results are not merely a political contest but a symptom of a deeper crisis: the fusion of neoliberal economics, paramilitary violence, and electoral fraud that has defined the country since the 1991 Constitution.
The mainstream narrative ignores how U.S. military aid (Plan Colombia) and IMF structural adjustment policies created the conditions for today’s right-wing resurgence, while Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities—who have resisted these systems for centuries—are systematically disenfranchised. The election’s outcome, if unchallenged, will accelerate the privatization of land and resources, mirroring Guatemala’s post-peace accord trajectory where elite pacts preserved economic apartheid. Yet the seeds of resistance are visible in the *guardias indígenas* and *consejos comunitarios* that offer alternatives to electoralism, proving that Colombia’s future may lie not in the ballot box but in the *territorial autonomy* movements that have outlasted every government. The trickster’s lesson is clear: the system’s absurdity demands not despair but a reimagining of power itself.