Brazil’s Green Party is seeking an alliance with popular Colombian presidential candidate Antanas Mockus‘ Green Party, with the aim of creating a South America-wide left-wing union, reports EFE.
Senator Marina Silva, the Brazilian Green Party’s presidential candidate, is scheduled to meet with Mockus on May 20 in Bogota, in order to discuss the alliance.
“We consider that it is important to create an alternative left-wing pole in Latin America to face off against the authoritarian, populist and anachronistic left of Chavism and of the Castro brothers in Cuba,” said Alfredo Sirkis, founder and former president of Brazil’s Green Party.
“The growth of Mockus in polls in Colombia and that of Marina Silva in Brazil demonstrates that Latin American society wants a new alternative left; democratic and ecological,” Sirkis added.
According to Sirkis, the proposed new left-wing axis would represent a left that privileges the principles of sustainability, respect for democracy and human rights, and a modern vision of society – values that the Brazilian considers Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as lacking in his “alternative” agenda.
Sirkis said the idea was to “establish an initial axis with Mockus, who represents the proposal of urban transformation for the Greens, and Marina, who has global prestige as a defender of the Amazon,” and then bring into the fold political movements from other Latin American nations, not necessarily Greens per se, but with the same core values.
For Sirkis, Mockus and his three principal allies – former Bogota mayors Enrique Peñalosa and Luis Eduardo Garzon, and former Medellin mayor and Greens vice presidential candidate Sergio Fajardo are successful examples of urban reformers.
The Brazilian Greens also expressed interest in learning how the Colombian Greens had used the internet as a tool to catapult Mockus into the spotlight.
The “green wave” of success that Mockus has enjoyed in the last few weeks is mirrored in his ongoing surges in voter opinion polls. Mockus is currently neck-and-neck with the presidential candidate who represents Colombian politics’ established interests, Partido de la U’s Juan Manuel Santos.
The latest voter poll indicates that if Santos and Mockus were to face one another in a second round election, Mockus would emerge triumphant.
The first round of Colombia’s presidential elections will be held on May 30. If none of the candidates wins more than 50% of the vote, the two most voted-for candidates will compete in a second round election.