With less than half a year before Colombia’s congressional elections, the country’s political parties’s urban disapproval rating has hit the highest level in more than a decade.
Over the past two terms, the parties’ approval rating has dropped from 38% to 8%. Disapproval hit 91%, a rating not measured in the country’s main cities since 2007, Gallup Colombia said Wednesday.
Cities where Gallup polls public opinion
The parties’ approval had already jumped below that of the FARC, the Marxist rebel group that until last year violently tried to overthrow the state in a decades-long armed conflict.
The guerrilla group’s disapproval rating is 79%. It’s urban approval following demobilization stands at 17%.
The political parties’ popularity crisis comes amid legislative chaos as Congress is failing to ratify key elements of the peace deal with the FARC.
To make matters worse, senior politicians are embroiled in corruption scandals not seen in over a decade.
Establishment politicians have disassociated from their political parties in an attempt to evade public ire.
This appears to be failing, for example in the case of former Vice-President German Vargas, the most senior of candidates.
Vargas’ disapproval shot up from 43% to 59% after he announced to be running independently from his party, Radical Change.
Colombia’s 2018 elections
The country’s traditional powerhouses, the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party, have yet to announce a candidate.
President Juan Manuel Santos’ party, the U Party, has been split between those supporting Vargas and those seeking a candidate from within the party.
In spite of the relative short period until the March elections, the political parties’ situation could worsen if a transitional justice court that is part of the peace process takes force.
The last time a transitional court took force, more than 60 congressmen disappeared behind bars for their ties to paramilitary group that had committed tens of thousands of war crimes.