Voting day in Medellin

Voting day in Medellin

I am writing this post from outside the main convention centre in Medellin, Colombia's second city.

It’s currently about 17 GMT - or noon local time. The convention centre is one of the primary polling places in this city.

All morning we have seen a steady stream of people coming and going to cast their vote. I am talking thousands of people.

Photo: Me blogging at the Al Jazeera live position  outside the convention center in Medellin. Photo: Maria Elena Romero/Al Jazeera 

My colleague, Lucia Newman, Al Jazeera’s Latin American editor, has been presenting Al Jazeera’s coverage from Bogota’s Plaza Bolivar for the past few days and she is there again today to lead our coverage.

And correspondent Teresa Bo, who has been in Colombia for over two weeks telling stories related to this election, is today roaming  Bogota checking in on voting, and will likely be gauging the mood of the Antanas Mockus campaign later in the day via live reports.

 I am in Medellin, one of Latin America’s most beautiful cities, but not here for the beauty of the city. I am here because this city will play a critical role in the election and you can’t really tell the story of the Colombian elections without telling the story of Medellin and, by extension, Antioquia state where Medellin is the capitol.

Photo: Long lines in Medellin today to vote. Thousands of people. Photo: Maria Elena Romero/Al Jazeera

Medellin is Colombia’s second largest city. There are 1.2 million people here registered to vote.

The fight for Antioquia

Both of the main two front running candidates have strong roots here.

President Alvaro Uribe used to be the governor of Antioquia state. Uribe’s family is from here, and he still has family ranches here where he raises show horses.

Uribe is to Antioquia what the Bush family is to Texas. Any goodwill this state has for Uribe will trickle down to Juan Manuel Santos, who is running as an extension of the Uribe legacy.

Part of the reason I am in Medellin to gauge the Santos mood here, and I will be doing that as the day moves along.

But the other main candidate, Mockus, pulled a surprise out of his hat when he selected Sergio Fajardo as his running mate on the Green Party ticket.

Fajardo is the super popular, young and energetic ex mayor of Medellin. Mockus for sure is going to get votes here in voter-rich Medellin simply for the fact Fajardo is his running mate.

By selecting Fajardo, Mockus essentially sent a shot over the bow of the Santos campaign and a message of ‘Game on in Antioquia’ was clearly sent.

 Security

A lot has been made about the security situation for this election. Here in Medellin, things, so far, are going smoothly. There is not an overbearing security presence.

Photo: A woman checking her name on voting list with the help of a policeman. Photo: Maria Elena Romero/Al Jazeera

In the past Colombia has been a fragile democracy, disrupted by high impact violence around the time of elections.

This time, by all accounts so far today, democracy is trumping violence.

Uribe and, by extension, Santos (his former defence minster) say they are to thank for this.

Comparisons to US elections

There are two aspects to this elections today that remind me a lot of recent elections in America.

 2004 - This was the election where George W Bush was not the ‘popular, hip candidate.’ There was a lot to attack Bush on.

John Kerry and his young running mate, John Edwards, were the flavour of the moment. Kerry’s supporters on the streets, in general, were more vocal and active in their support of their candidate than Bush’s people were. I am generalising here, I know. But that is the sense I got.

Bush people maybe didn’t buy as many T-shirts and put as many Bush-Cheney bumper stickers on their car, but when it came time to voting ,Bush got 62 million votes and as we all know won the election.

Clearly when it mattered the most (voting), Bush’s people and his superior organisational campaign did not let him down.

Similar position

Juan Manuel Santos is in a similar position. His supporters in Colombia are not quite as active, they don’t show their support as much for him as Mockus’s supporters do.

Mockus is the "cool" candidate with cool T-shirt, cool You Tube videos. Santos is the establishment candidate.

But Santos is hoping that an overwhelming number of people will quietly cast their vote for him. And his party organisation will trump all the rest, just like it did for Bush in 2004.

2008 - Barack Obama did something very few politicians have the ability to do: He led a movement. You can disagree with his movement, if you wish, but like it or not he led a movement.

Politicians come and go all the time, but people who can lead movements, rally people to higher causes other than politics, are a rarity. All politicians try to do it, few succeed.

Big question

Antanas Mockus is a politicians who is leading a movement in Colombia right now. He has transcended the technocrat-politician role.

The big question is, will his movement, made up mostly of social networking, urban young, and disenfranchised ex Uribe voters, be enough to win the presidency?

 We might be only a few hours away from finding out the answer. Or maybe not.

Most political analysts will tell you that come Monday morning it’s likely going to be a runoff between Mockus and Santos.

What will happen then? I will deal with that issue in another blog post.