On Sunday 11 March, Colombia saw the most peaceful elections in the last decades, with the lowest number of violent incidents.  All ranks of Former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) combatants and senior leaders of their new political party, the Common Alternative Revolutionary Force, were able to exercise their right to vote.

 

The FARC were one out sixteen parties and political movements competing for the votes of more than fifteen million Colombians at these legislative elections. Ex-combatants maintained their interest to go to the polls and run for election without FARC’s most senior leader, Rodrigo Londoño, who has suffered from health complications recently.  In doing so, a vital commitment of the Peace Accord between the Government of Colombia and the FARC-EP was fulfilled.

 

Leading the ballot list for the Senate, FARC leader Ivan Marquez, had not voted in the thirty years since he was elected as member of parliament for the Union Patriotica (UP), a political movement which emerged from the peace negotiations between the FARC and the administration of then President Belisario Betancur.

 

“I did not think this would happen so fast. This is all thanks to the peace agreement signed in Havana, and we hope that all Colombians are fully aware of its significance”, said Marquez to journalists after casting his vote. Separately, Pablo Catatumbo, also a FARC leader running for Senate described this is as an “historic day”. “At 64, this is the first time I am able to exercise my voting right, and I am truly happy and touched to have done it in the name of peace and reconciliation of our people” declared Catatumbo.

 

Ingrid, a former FARC combatant, who now spends her time tending the fields of a reincorporation project at the territorial area for training and reincorporation in Pondores, La Guajira department, exercised her right to vote for the first time. Upon casting her vote, she noted “this day was very important for us, former combatants. For the first time we felt proud because we have hopes to see a different Colombia with social equality, education, housing, and where we all have rights."

 

The Peace Accords guarantee the FARC party in the five seats in the Senate and the House of Representatives respectively. Therefore, during the legislative period 2018-2022, they will be represented in the Senate by Ivan Marquez, Pablo Catatumbo, Victoria Sandino, Antonio Lozada and Sandra Ramirez, the widow of FARC’s founder Manuel Marulanda. In the House of Representatives, Byron Yepes, Jairo Quintero, Seusis Pausivas Hernandez, Marco Leon Calarca and Olmedo Ruiz will represent the FARC party. The FARC obtained over 85,000 votes (0.34% of the total) in these elections.

 

The UN Verification Mission in Colombia is tasked with conducting the verification of the implementation of political rights guarantees by former combatants, according to the disposition in the point 3.2 of the Peace Accord.

 

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