“You can now travel. Before he arrived (it) was a mess here. The highways were full of bandits and you couldn’t get out of the cities”. José Miguel explains while driving his taxi through the busy streets of Bogotá. He is referring to President Álvaro Uribe Vélez, undoubtedly the most popular leader in recent Colombian history.

“So you travel a lot now?” I reply, trying not to distract him.

He bellows with laughter: “No – emphasizing the ooo… I don’t have enough money to travel.”

This is just a snap-shot after eight years under the leadership of Uribe, Colombia’s 39th President. Who waged a relentless war on the FARC guerrillas also known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, but in doing so neglected areas of social policy and employment in a country with 12 per cent unemployment and 46 per cent of population living below the poverty line.

Uribe was able to change the constitution once to be re-elected in 2006, but failed last week after the Colombian Constitutional Court made its most important decision since the courts inception in 1991, declaring the referendum for a third presidential election, ‘unconstitutional’.

“He’s been very bad with all workers!” – Shouts Marina, amid the demonstration outside the courthouse, “he took away all our rights, holidays and Sundays, he is starving us. We, the poor class, we are in a terrible situation.” A crowd gathers round spontaneously to celebrate the decision from the judges.

The day after, television and radio stations were overloaded by those for and against such an important decision.

So finally the real political campaign for Colombia’s next president will kick off in May. The ruling to overturn Uribe’s potential for a third term, has intern created one the most significant Colombian Presidential election campaigns in decades. The scenario is of huge uncertainty and the fact that so far, no candidate has reached 20% of the vote, should create tough oppositions.  At least seven candidates have possibilities for the final victory.

There are three groups of candidates, those who are considered followers of Uribe and are trying to inherit his popularity; those who claim change to the existing model and the Independents.

Before leaving the taxi, Miguel looks at me through the rear view mirror and asks: “why Colombia? Isn’t over there better?”. “Over there” being the rest of the world. I’ve never been able to answer this question myself, but I’ve learnt to reply in what most taxi drivers believe: “Because Colombia is beautiful.” Which, for Miguel means despite 50-years of bloody conflict, narco-traffic, corruption, severe poverty and massacres, Colombia is still beautiful.

And he’s right.

Written and photographed by Simone Bruno





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