Colombians Go For a Clown
How a Zany Geriatric Moved to Colombia's Runoff
“Among the masses, too, he enjoyed a great reputation for his good qualities, real or apparent…he was a generous friend- and gracious and affable even to strangers…But his character lacked seriousness or self-control. He was superficial, ostentatious, and sometimes dissolute. But many people are fascinated by depravity and disinclined for austere morals on the throne. Such men found Piso’s qualities attractive.”
- Tacitus [Annals, XV.48]
When I set out to write about Colombia’s presidential election, it was because the plot seemed right, with an elderly right wing populist on one side, a left wing former guerrilla on the other, and Colombia’s conservative political establishment routed and left out of power; another instance of the loss of institutional trust among the public. They call candidate Rodolfo Hernandez “Colombia’s Trump” all over the media for his age, wealth, behavior, and most of all, social media presence [he is the self-proclaimed “King of TikTok.”] This is much crazier than another Trump-like figure in politics. I got about 800 words into my first article, and then, in my research, I finally actually watched Hernandez’s infamous TikTok videos. This is some seriously weird shit; this is not like traditional parties fading in countries such as France. I had to start over.
I am shocked that a country with Colombia’s historic problems would vote for such an unserious person, just for railing against corruption and being a jester. And I say this as someone who non-ironically voted for Kanye West to lead a nuclear superpower [admittedly, watching Zelensky, whom I was initially excited for, has massively reduced my belief in voting for clowns]. Will Rogers famously said, “The trouble with practical jokes is they often get elected” and this elderly construction tycoon whose TikTok videos you imagine were taken by a nurse at an old folks home is definitely a joke and will probably get elected…and the funniest part may be that he looks like Mr. Roper from Three’s Company when he smiles at the camera. This is all beyond the normal levels of politics being humorous, and has moved into the surreal.
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It would be one thing if he just had a silly social media presence, but he essentially skipped the other aspects of campaigning. This is it, these weird TikTok videos, attacks on corruption, various bizarre statements [including calling himself a follower of Adolf Hitler, and then years later saying he meant to say Albert Einstein], and a plans to provide free cocaine to the public and make visiting the sea once in your lifetime a human right. All the while calling the political class “drug addicts” and “thieves.” Here is the TikTok video he released instead of going to the debate, saying his debate is with Colombians not the politicians:
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I have a very limited understanding of Spanish, and am mostly relying on what I can learn from the bizarre behavior in the videos, but in this one I used a translator: he says his debate is not with politicians but with Colombians…then cuts to them screaming about being bored.
It’s funny we thought Trump was crazy and “not playing their game”, but this guy is running his campaign as if it is an actual joke. And now he is claiming his opponent, the former rebel, is plotting to kill him- playing on the public’s prejudice against demobilized guerillas- and that he intends to have no more campaign events at all…until shortly after he said he was indeed returning to Colombia. And for all of that, he seems likely to be the next president of Colombia. So how, exactly, did this happen?
For a brief background, as you probably know, Colombia experienced an interminable civil war and struggles with extremely powerful drug cartels. However, Colombia is also a surprisingly politically stable country with a diverse and developed legal economy. The downtown areas of Bogota are honestly too nice looking to be in the United States. However, Colombia also suffers from widespread poverty, and has little class mobility [except for, apparently, if you are Rodolfo Hernandez.] Like most Latin American countries, Colombia’s left and right parties tend to be very far to their own side; America’s Democrats and Republicans would both be in the Latin American center. Unlike most Latin American countries, instead of power changing back and forth periodically, Colombia has been under US-aligned center-to-far-right government for its entire modern history. However, the populist right has never won either: the country has stayed under the control of the elite right wing political establishment, currently known as uribismo, after former President Alvaro Uribe. [It needs to be noted, doesn’t really fall into the left-right paradigm as he essentially takes random political positions.]
Polling led to widespread speculation that anti-establishment sentiment could propel former rebel Gustavo Petro to become Colombia’s first left wing president. And indeed, Petro came in first in the primary with an impressive 41%. However, the establishment uribismo candidate Federico Gutierrez faltered at the end, while Hernandez’s TikTok videos somehow caused him to rise, and then massively outperform polling. Hernandez came in four points ahead of Gutierrez, creating a unique situation where the establishment right is not in the final round at all. It was believed that Petro could rely on anti-establishment/”change” votes to come out first in the final round. This all changed when there as no establishment candidate, and the entire political establishment endorsed Hernandez [which of course, by extension, makes him the establishment candidate.] Though polling on the final round is close, basic math from the first round shows that 28.15% + 23.91% = 52.06%.
While one would imagine Hernandez’s outrageous behavior could alienate much of the electorate in favor of the more conventional and “responsible” Petro, after many decades of brutal partisan warfare its surely the case that most conservatives would never vote for a left wing ex-guerilla under any circumstances. And thus, it seems that Hernandez, who doesn’t even appear to intend to take the job seriously, will be the next President of Colombia- a key US partner in the region. [There is no reason to believe Hernandez does not intend to keep the country US-aligned, he is simply a wacky and unreliable.]
So who is Rodolfo Hernandez, and how did his political star rise? [The second part is harder to answer, as this is all a theater of the absurd.] To start, Hernandez is a 77 year old multi-millionaire [he proclaims to have $100 million in wealth, though it appears in Colombia candidates don’t release any sort of financial information and that is just what he says.] The child of peasants, he studied civil engineering at the National University of Colombia, graduating in 1970. After a couple of decades working as a civil engineer, he founded a construction company and rapidly became wealthy in Colombia’s real estate industry. His company primarily focused on low-income housing; it is not clear to me if that means government housing projects or simply private slums.
Besides being a building tycoon, Hernandez’s most interesting biographical detail is that his daughter Juliana was allegedly kidnapped and killed by ELN rebels in 2004. He claims she was killed after he refused to pay a ransom, though the group- which is still at war with the Colombian government- claims that it never had her or spoke to him [and her body has never been recovered, for all we know she’s alive and has gone Patty Hearst.] It isn’t clear if they would admit to it if they had done it, though the fact that they bothered to look into it before saying they didn’t do it would imply they would acknowledge it if they had. Regardless of this, Hernandez says he supports making peace with ELN. [Colombia’s "Peace Agreement” seen as ending the civil war was actually only with FARC; Hernandez hopes to copy it with ELN.]
Besides a brief stint on city council in the early ‘90s, Hernandez entered politics in 2015 running for mayor of the politically peripheral mid-sized city of Bucaramanga. [Strangely, everyone in Colombia seems to refer to it as small, despite that it has over 500k residents in the city proper.] In his campaign he railed against the corrupt ruling class and promised free housing to the residents of an impoverished neighborhood [free housing which was never delivered.] The people love his goofy smile and he is talented at playing into the frustrations of the public- and when everyone perceives a country is corrupt you can go light on the details and heavy on the accusations. While in office he famously slapped a city councilman who was accusing him of corruption, for which he was suspended [and now he is campaigning with “slapping corruption” as a slogan.] He then resigned in 2019 shortly before the end of his term after running afoul of Colombia’s law against campaigning while in office.
In June 2021 Hernandez announced his candidacy for president, releasing this ridiculous TikTok video showing himself signing up:
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[His soundtrack choice is especially funny now that his opponent’s VP is a black woman…imagine if Trump used that song.]
Hernandez created a makeshift political party called the “League of Anti-Corruption Governors” to support his candidacy. This is despite the fact that he is facing trial for corruption in between election day and inauguration day, and could win the election then be disqualified from taking office. His campaign has been truly absurd, as he has primarily refused interviews, events, and debates, and instead just posted more of these bizarre TikTok videos. But, somehow it all worked, just like Mario jumping on Goombas…?
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Though he is been criticized for everything you can imagine- many of those criticisms seemingly entirely valid- nothing hurts him with the segment of the population that loves him [he could probably shoot someone in the streets of Bogota and not lose support.] When he resigned from office in Bucaramanga he had an approval rating of 84%. And now, it appears an unserious campaign with the aforementioned free cocaine and beach vacations as well as a plan to close embassies to pay student debt may actually be the winning ticket.
I have mixed feelings about the whole situation. When I first saw his TikTok videos I found it completely surreal. My general hatred of the political elite and longstanding support for comedians in politics made me warm up to this insanity pretty fast. At the same time, witnessing TV comedian Zelensky as the leader of Ukraine has really made me question if electing comedians is as funny as it seems, especially when there are complex problems to be worked out. But Hernandez does have experience in both political and business leadership, and is used to working within Colombia’s elite. I fear that Colombia has far too complex political and economic problems for Hernandez’s zany leadership, but at the same time, it is that kind of thinking which lets the elites keep power. And further, presumably those same elites will continue to hold a great deal of power under Hernandez, even if he berates and belittles them all the while.
Regardless of what happens, enjoy this video of a political candidate hugging a duck instead of kissing a baby:
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