THE GAPING VOID ON THE LEFT

Why Left-wing Populism Took Hold in Venezuela but not in Colombia

Sjoerd ten Wolde
London School of Economics and Political Science, Government Department
2 February, 2014

1. Introduction
Venezuela has over the past 15 years seen a spate of left-wing populism, with Hugo
Chvez profoundly transforming the country. Yet neighbouring Colombia, which shares
many characteristics with Venezuela, has remained largely dominated by a right-wing
elite1. Unlike Venezuelas, Colombias elite has managed to keep competitors out of the
electoral arena. They were able to do so because local clientelist networks and the
influence of guerrilla groups presented leftist parties with insurmountable entry
barriers to the political system, this essay contends. Meanwhile, Venezuelas political
centralism and the lack of armed struggle meant that it was much easier for the left to
win the vote.

2. Colombia and Venezuela: Similarities and Differences

2.1 A fork in the road
Colombia and Venezuela share much in common 2. Both nations, coming from the viceroyalty of Nueva Grenada, became part of Simn Bolvars project of Gran Colombia in
1819. Both have an Andean and a Caribbean part, and a large mestizo population, but
lack the large indigenous population of Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. Wealth distribution
has historically been highly unequal, with a small, Spanish-descendant population
controlling most of the countrys resources.
Most importantly, however, recent history until the 1990s has shown some strong
similarities. In 1958, in both countries the two major parties concluded a pact to share
1 An elite shall here be taken to mean an established group of people with
consolidated privileges, rather than just any group that occupies power.
2 The choice for Colombia and Venezuela is a most-similar case research design.

power. In both cases, the agreement was seen as a safeguard for democracy, as other
countries in the region slid into authoritarianism (cf. Mazzuca and Robinson 2009). And
in both countries, the resulting party system became increasingly atavistic, and was
eventually done away with in the 1990s and early 2000s.
But then the similarities ended. While Venezuela went down a strongly redistributive
but economically unsustainable path, characterised by Chvezs mass politics, Colombia
saw a perpetuation of the old order in a different skin. No left-wing party or candidate
has so far stood a chance in Colombias national politics, while the old elites still inhabit
the echelons of power.
The central question is then:
What explains the continuation of right-wing elite politics in Colombia, while Venezuela
saw the advent of left-wing populism?

2.2 Colombia
Colombias Frente Nacional was signed between the Conservative and Liberal Party in
1958. The pact concluded a 10-year civil war, La Violencia, which ensued after the killing
of the only left-wing populist politician to ever rise to prominence, Jorge Elicer Gaitn.
The elite pact ensured the equal distribution of ministerial posts, a president that was
jointly agreed upon, and several other features (Rodrguez Raga 2002: p.223). The pact
itself lasted until 1974, when the parties started competing for the presidency again3. But
the resulting party system lasted until much later, as the parties threw up barriers to
prevent other parties from entering the political arena, such as joint lists for regional
party chapters in national elections (Robinson 2005: p.14). The result was a biased
political landscape, in which political power alternated between the centre-right and
right. In the meanwhile, a number of guerrilla movements, such as the FARC and the
ELN, sprang into existence.
In the early 2000s, a senator called lvaro Uribe made his way up through the Liberal
Party as a deviant right-wing politician, proposing a policy of mano dura against the
countrys guerrillas. After a failed peace deal with the FARC, he capitalised on the
discontent and was elected president in 2002. Almost single-handedly, he killed off the
3 http://www.elespectador.com/especiales/carlos-lleras-restrepo/articulo-el-final-delfrente-nacional

bipartisan system, starting his own party and giving rise to the entry of new parties into
Colombian politics.
In 2010, after Uribe served his two terms, his anointed successor Juan Manuel Santos
battled electorally with Antanas Mockus, a progressive but moderate Green Party leftist
with a largely urban, modern constituency. Mockus did not stand a chance, and was
swept away by a 42.6-percent lead. And in the 2014 presidential elections, leftist
candidates again did not stand a chance, with the second round between centre-right
president Santos and the more conservative scar Ivn Zuluaga.
In brief, Colombia has not seen a left-wing presidential competitor that stood a realistic
chance since Gaitn, who was shot in 1948 before he could ever come to power.
2.3 Venezuela
Venezuelas Pacto de Punto Fijo, signed in 1958, established that the two largest parties 4,
COPEI and AD, would share power between the two of them. The party that won the
elections would include the other party in at least some of its governmental posts.
Although the Pact itself was a successful attempt to guarantee Venezuelas democracy
after a period of dictatorship, it eventually came to be an institutionalised system of
power distribution (McCoy 1999: pp.64-65). It kept political outsiders at bay
exemplified by the communist party, which was excluded from the onset. Moreover, it
ended up biasing the political system towards the socio-economic right, with relatively
little of Venezuelas oil wealth redistributed toward the poor.
In the latter days of puntofijismo, the cracks began to show: party members launched
their own parties, instigated intra-party rebellions, or otherwise strayed from the party
line (McCoy 1999). Erstwhile founder of the pact Rafael Caldera ran on an anti-systemic
platform, being elected to the presidency in 1994. But none of the deviants was able to
placate the electorate.
Enter Hugo Chvez. After a failed coup attempt in 1992, Chvez ran for election in 1998
on a leftist platform. He won with a landslide, getting in 56.2 percent of the vote 5.
4 Initially, it was an agreement including a third party, the Unin Republicana
Democrtica (URD), but the URD left the pact in 1962 after discord
5 http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Elecdata/Venezuela/pre98.html

Moreover, voter turnout ticked up again to 63.5 percent, after falling to a low of 60.2
percent in the 1993 elections6.
After this, Chvez went on to take Venezuelan politics by storm. In a crossfire of
plebiscites and elections, he took increasing control over the political system, filling key
positions with his allies (Philip & Pannizza 2010: p. 94-96). Turnout at presidential
elections rose strongly, hovering between 75 and 80 percent, as the left part of the
electorate came to life and politics became increasingly polarised7.
Unlike Colombia, Venezuelas gap on the left, created by an entrenched elite throwing
up entry barriers, was done away with entirely by a leftist. Ever since, both the ideas
and tactics of Chvezs Bolivarian movement have dominated the Venezuelan political
scene. Only in the 2013 elections, when Nicols Maduro contended with a united
centre-right alliance for the first time, did the two sides vie for the centre again, after 15
years of left-wing domination.
3. Theoretical framework
Elite capture in Latin American democracies and bouts of populism are deeply linked
phenomena. Yet, much of the much of the literature on populism in Latin America has
addressed only the demand-side of the equation: voters and civil society. At the same
time, the literature on elite politics has often failed to look at the demand side, only
focussing on what politicians do. This essay aims to bridge both literatures.
3.1 Populism
Most accounts of populism look at what is there either the choice of voters to vote for
a populist, or on the particular strategy and style of a populist politician. But they
largely ignore what has until then been going in the political supply market, where
politicians can compete or collude amongst themselves. Often, what is missing in the
political market is as important as what is happening.
Jennifer Collins (2014), focussing on a socio-cultural notion of populism, highlights the
role of civil society as a catalyst for driving left-wing populism. In her view, social
6 http://www.idea.int/vt/countryview.cfm?CountryCode=VE
7 http://www.idea.int/vt/countryview.cfm?CountryCode=VE

movements in Ecuador and Bolivia constructed the collective identities needed for
successful populism, on which charismatic leaders piggybacked afterwards. This has
surely been the case in both countries, and in Venezuela as well. But her account of
populism misses a more structural factor: the failure of the political elite to provide a
credible left-wing alternative, while maintaining entry barriers to the political system.
Sebastin Edwards (2010), proposing a strictly economic definition of populism, takes
the view that the Latin American populace continues to fall blindly for the false
promise of populism. Following Jorge Castaeda, he juxtaposes the populist left,
exemplified by Chvez, with modern leftists such as Brazils Lula, asserting that the
modern, moderate left eventually serves the interests of the poor much better than the
populists. But he forgets that there was hardly any modern left in Latin America before
the 2000s, and that any nominally leftist parties were usually hijacked by a right-leaning
elite, such as in the case of Bolivias MNR by Goni Snchez de Losada. Edwards
therefore focuses on the failure of the voters the demand-side of politics to elect the
right politicians, but overlooks the failure of the political system to provide voters with
a true choice.
3.2

Elite capture and clientelism

The weakness in the literature on elite behaviour, on the other hand, is that it does not
take into account how voters preferences and behaviour could have changed over the
past decades.
In a bid to explain Colombias lack of economic populism, Robinson (2005) highlights
the role of clientelism in the Colombian polity. Colombian elites have always held a firm
grip on their local constituencies through clientelism, with local politicians able to buy
votes for both themselves and their partisans. This obviated the need for populist
measures to win the vote, as politicians could provide citizens with private goods rather
than public goods. Moreover, the clientelistic networks allowed elites to throw up
political entry barriers, so that new parties could not enter. While Robinsons account is
accurate, and patronage has indeed traditionally been strong in Colombia, he assumes
that voters political preferences changed little over a voting history of almost 100 years.
While patronage is still an important political instrument, especially in the countryside,
however, it has arguably been losing force as a result of both rising incomes and better
information.

Rodrguez-Raga (2002) underlines the flexibility of Colombias traditional elites with

which they adapt to more electoral competition and new political rules. Hence, despite
a constitutional change in 1991 and the transformation of senatorial voting from many
single-member districts to one national multi-member district, he deems the same
groups to still be in power. Mazzucca and Robinson (2009) also emphasise the elites
resilience in the face of several institutional challenges and changes in the early 20 th
century. But these accounts do not grant any role to voters. Rodrguez-Raga assumes, for
example, that the institutional changes were exogenously given, while they were in
reality an elite response to voter disgruntlement and the armed conflict.
3.3

Bridging the literature

A good starting point to bridge these two literatures is the citizen-candidate model by
Besley and Coate (1997). This model brings together the act of voting and the decision to
run for office, uniting political supply and demand. In the model, citizens may vote for a
candidate or abstain. They may also choose to run for office at a cost. The model
predicts that, given viable candidates on both sides of the aisle, two-party competition
will ensue. Citizens run for office if there is no other candidate that closely represents
them and if the benefit of running for office exceeds the costs.
In Latin America, however, candidates socio-economic background and their political
position has often been strongly correlated. This has especially been so where rich and
poor are divided along ethnic lines, in countries like Bolivia, Peru or even Venezuela.
Moreover, voters political ideologies are often also strongly correlated with their
personal wealth and status in society. As a result, Latin Americas wealthy economic
elites have also by and large dominated the political scene (cf. Luna & Zechmeister
2005).
We can therefore informally extend the model by including this feature of Latin
American polities through an unequal wealth distribution and a positive correlation of
wealth and right-wing convictions (see Figure 1). There are entry barriers to politics,
such as campaign costs, and a significant part of the population is not able to pay for
such costs.
Wealth

Entry barriers

Left

Median voter

Right

Figure 1
Moreover, those in power can purposefully keep up these barriers, since they have
control over both election rules and inter-party competition. This idea is similar to the
industrial-organisation literature on abuse of a dominant market position (cf. Tirole
1988: p.790). If entry barriers are naturally high as they were in the 19 th and early 20th
century in Latin America , then elite parties need not worry about keeping up such
barriers, and a semi-competitive equilibrium with two right-wing parties ensues. This
explains the general situation of competition between conservative and liberal parties in
most Latin American countries, including Colombia (cf. Boix 1999: p.162).
But if the natural entry barriers fall, political elites must find some form of colluding,
lest they lose their grip on the system. Boix (1999) emphasises the shift from
majoritarian voting to proportional representation in Europe as a risk-reducing strategy
for elites and indeed, Latin American elites adopted this strategy as well throughout
the 20th century (Wills-Otero 2009). But the elites of Colombia and Venezuela, after
respectively a civil war and a dictatorship, also found ways to keep political challengers
at bay. In both countries, the two major parties concluded a pact, reducing competition
in the electoral arena. In many ways, the pact was a form of political collusion, much
akin to a cartel in economic markets. The two parties did not fight each other, and could
thus focus their electoral strategy on keeping other parties out. They also agreed on
favourable rules so that intraparty not interparty competition was the norm (Roland &
Zapata 2005).
In a semi-competitive elite equilibrium, such as the one under the Frente Nacional and
puntofijismo two parties can therefore keep leftist competitors out of politics (see Figure
2). Meanwhile on the demand side, left-wing voters are presented with no real choice
and thus have little incentive to vote at all. In Colombia, for instance, voter turnout hit a
37-percent low in the 1966 presidential elections 8. Abstention was particularly high
among the urban poor, who could count on political representation nor clientelist

8 http://countrystudies.us/colombia/85.htm

extras. Venezuela, which had compulsory voting, saw higher turnout, but turnout there
also dropped strongly in the early 1990s9.

Wealth

Liberal
s

Conservati
ves

Entry barriers

Left

Median
voter

Right

Figure 2
Like business cartels, however, political pacts inexorably fall apart. In both cases, intraparty competition was what led ultimately to the entry of new parties. In the case of
Venezuela, Rafael Caldera destroyed COPEI from within, and AD from without. By the
time the old order lay in ruins, it was easy for Chvez to deliver the death blow. In
Colombia, lvaro Uribe rose through the Liberal Party, but was quick to form his own
party leaving both the Liberals and the Conservatives in tatters. By disintegrating their
own parties, both presidents broke down the entry barriers to the political system. As a
result, both countries saw a strong increase in the effective number of political parties.
But while Venezuelan politics shifted to a non-elite leftist equilibrium, with the old
elites losing much of their power, Colombias elites managed to cling on to power.
3.4 Structural conditions
There are two structural conditions underlying this difference. First, Colombias original
elites were able to exploit their local patronage networks to keep contenders out and
voters in, with Uribe being especially apt at this. Meanwhile, Venezuelan elites could
not resort to this, as the electorate is much more centralised and urbanised. Second, the
9 http://www.idea.int/vt/countryview.cfm?CountryCode=VE

presence of guerrilla groups in Colombia has thrown up electoral entry barriers for the
left, as it is structurally disadvantaged against the right in public discourse. In
Venezuela, on the other hand, the right was discredited after the economic stagnation of
the 1990s.
Colombia never saw economic populism because elites could resort to local clientelism,
both Urrutia (2001) and Robinson (2005) argue. In the same vein, once the party system
fell apart in Colombia, politicians could resort to their local patronage networks to
sustain at least their own political might. And once this same elite had formed new
parties, they could use these networks to keep out non-elite contenders. Moreover, the
old parties the liberals and conservatives did not cease to exist. Rather, more rightwing parties joined the fray. As a result the unravelling of the Colombian party system
was more a reshuffling of the constellation of elite power than a true remaking of the
political landscape. Intra-elite competition intensified, but the effective political
spectrum was not widened much.
Why did this happen in Colombia and not in Venezuela? Venezuelas political economy
has always been much more centralised than Colombias (cf. Gallup et al. 2003). Caracas
is by far the largest and most important city, and much of the electoral logic revolves
around the capital and a few other large cities. With a higher rate of urbanisation 89
percent compared with Colombias 76 percent 10 , rural patronage is often simply not
possible, and economic populism is often a better way of winning votes 11. Thus, when
Venezuelas party system fell apart in the 1990s, the traditional elites could not rely on
their networks to keep their political power.
Colombia, on the other hand, still has a highly fractured political economy, with its
mountainous terrain separating major cities like Bogot, Medelln and Cali. Political
competition traditionally revolved around regional politics, with the national
government having a relatively small impact on policy. As a result, electoral patronage
was, and still is, much more efficient for politicians. Relying on these local networks,
politicians could keep their own power intact and create barriers against new entrants,
who did not have the critical mass to build such networks around the country.
10 http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS
11 This did not preclude Hugo Chvez from setting up an extensive system of
arguably politicised redistribution.

A more obvious entry barrier for leftist parties in Colombia has been the presence of
leftist guerrilla groups, primarily the FARC and ELN. This armed struggle put left-wing
parties at a disadvantage, as they could easily be associated with the guerrillas.
Moreover, the armed groups local clientelist networks also kept peaceful left-wing
parties from forming such networks.
4. Conclusion
Both Colombia and Venezuela had an elite-dominated political system from 1958
through the 1990s. While Venezuelas right-wing elites lost power to the chavista
movement, however, Colombias managed to cling to power, albeit in a more
competitive political landscape. They could do this because strong local networks of
patronage allowed them to keep up entry barriers to the political system, and guerrilla
groups gave rightist parties a large advantage in public discourse. Venezuelas
centralised politicals, and its lack of armed struggle, meant that local elites could hardly
put up any such barriers there.
As Colombian voters incomes rise, however, they will likely be less susceptible to
clientelism. Moreover, with a peace agreement with the FARC in the offing, the entry
barriers that leftist guerrillas hold for left-wing parties are also to disappear. It is
therefore likely that the current right-wing primacy in Colombian politics will break
down soon. The big question is then: what will come in its stead?

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