Farmers march in Bogota on March 17 to protest the failure of President Juan Manuel Santos' government to comply with an agreement signed in 2013. (GUILLERMO LEGARIA/AFP/Getty Images)
Summary
Recent moves by Colombia's agricultural organizations suggest that major protests could occur during the country's presidential election season. Several leftist groups closely identified with agricultural and rural matters decided on March 17 to form a negotiating team to force concessions from the government. If the government does not meet their demands, they will begin nationwide protests in early May. Other farming collectives, such as coffee and rice farmers, could join in the demonstrations. These groups have the potential to merge into a nationwide protest movement similar to the one that blocked roads across Colombia in 2013, which would threaten to undermine Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos' chances for re-election.
Analysis
The principal groups calling for the protests are leftist political organizations and agricultural activism groups. These include the Catatumbo region coca growers led by Cesar Jerez, the National Agricultural Table led by Olga Quintero and the Patriotic March contingent led by Andres Gil. The groups led by Jerez and Quintero are reputedly linked to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, also known as FARC, and the Colombian government considers Patriotic March a FARC-funded political party. According to media reports, these groups could be part of a FARC strategy to pressure the government through popular protests. Regardless of whether they are part of a wider FARC strategy, these organizations were active during the 2013 demonstrations and have proved capable of mobilizing thousands of people to protest and block roads.
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The groups' published demands include conditions such as the reversal of the government's business-friendly economic policies -- something the Santos administration will not significantly alter. However, the principal drivers of the planned demonstrations appear to be demands for more social spending, alternate means of income for coca farmers and subsidies for individuals and communities in rural areas. Several indigenous groups and the National Confederation of Miners, which is demanding an end to the government's efforts to eradicate illegal mines, will join these groups in any eventual protests.
Although the groups calling for the protests are principally leftist and social activist groups, less politically inclined farmers' groups could latch on to the demonstrations to pressure the government for concessions ahead of the election on May 25. Santos met with the Society of Colombian Agriculturalists, an umbrella group for a number of more business-oriented farmers' organizations that are threatening protests on April 28. Although these groups are not ideologically linked to the other organizations, they have their own sets of grievances that could spur them to express opposition. During the 2013 protests, farmers aligned with the Society of Colombian Agriculturalists joined forces with the leftist organizations to protest, subsequently reaching agreements with the government for more subsidies and loans. The Colombian government also increased the agricultural budget from 2.6 trillion pesos ($1.3 billion) to 5.7 trillion pesos, but the farmers' groups claim the government did not keep the promises it made after the national protests to disburse funds to farmers. The rice farmers' federation is demanding subsidies to compete with rice imports, and coffee farmers are also demanding debt relief from the government.
Santos' Political Problem
The planned unrest comes at a politically sensitive time for the Santos administration. The grievances are disparate and regionalized, but they point to dissatisfaction among the country's rural poor. While protests could originate with the FARC or the conservative sectors of the country, they will probably find a receptive audience among Colombia's rural population. If the protests occur, they are likely to hamper or prevent internal commerce and travel across the country for weeks and could erode Santos' electoral lead. However, the effects of the protests will last beyond the election season because they are rooted in the grievances of the country's long-ignored rural periphery.
Colombia's Geographic Challenge
Santos will try to avoid a repeat of the 2013 protests at all costs. From August to September of that year, farmers across the country blocked numerous highways and roads, resulting in temporary food shortages and regional spikes in the price of food items. Though leading to few deaths, the protests disrupted nationwide commerce for more than a month. If protests occur again, the government has the option to give financial concessions to the protesters, as it did during the 2013 outbreak.
Colombia's internal politics ahead of the May vote make Santos' reaction to the protests critical to the government's electoral fortunes. Although the president's coalition took the largest share of the vote during the March 9 legislative elections, the presidential race presents a more substantial challenge. A poll in late February indicated that Santos would gain about 30 percent of the vote, compared to 9 percent for his closest competitor, Green Party candidate Enrique Penalosa. However, a poll released March 16 showed Penalosa narrowly edging out Santos in the second round of voting by upward of 3 percent. This loss of popularity is not sudden: Santos has slowly lost approval over the course of his presidency due to the ruling coalition's split, and his re-election bid has alienated some voters. Regardless of the numbers indicated by polls, Santos will probably face genuine political competition in securing a second term.
Further Unrest Expected
Even if Santos averts a crisis ahead of the vote, Colombia's agricultural sector will remain restive for future presidential administrations. Most of the demonstrators involved in the 2013 protests came from poor, rural, geographically isolated areas in Colombia's hinterland. These included the departments of Narino, Boyaca, Cauca, Caqueta, Huila, Choco and Norte de Santander. Large swathes of territory within these departments were effectively cut off from the rest of the country for years, since the FARC and National Liberation Army once controlled significant territory within these areas. Consequently, the government's main priority in these regions (and its budgetary focus) for nearly 20 years was security, not rural development. Extreme levels of insurgent violence and remoteness from Colombia's urban core left these areas well below the national poverty line, and this underdevelopment continues to motivate protests. The Santos administration's main attempt at alleviating extreme poverty in Colombia was the 2011 mineral and oil royalties reform, which distributed extraction royalties more equally among the country's departments. However, addressing the social grievances spurring unrest in Colombia's rural regions is a long-term process that will challenge future administrations.
Colombia's outsized spending on its military and police forces, which was the product of a decadeslong insurgency, will not be quickly reversed. The government approved 27 trillion pesos for defense in 2014 -- nearly 14 percent of the national budget -- compared to slightly more than 5 trillion for all agricultural needs after Santos' concessions to the farmers' groups in 2013. Any potential peace deal will not put an end to the threat of drug trafficking, extortion and kidnapping from Colombia's criminal groups and militant remnants. Colombia's security spending will remain higher than average for Latin America for at least several years, thereby curtailing any significant increases in funding for agriculture-related causes.
In upcoming weeks, Santos will negotiate with the broad coalitions of agricultural groups to avert a crisis preceding the election. The groups' fractious nature and multiple demands make it doubtful that he will be able to satisfy them all, making protests more likely than not.
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