This year a series of ballot results have left Western democracies in shock and “experts” scrambling to find answers. In an unprecedented act of self-flagellation, the British electorate voted to leave the European Union in an advisory referendum in June 2016. Not to be outdone by their cousins across the Atlantic, US voters proceeded to elect an Ivy League trained business mogul as their anti-elite champion. Donald Trump’s message, or lack thereof, resonated with various sectors of the US electorate, and a sizable number (albeit not a majority) chose Trump as their next president.
Similarly in Colombia, after years of peace negotiations in Havana, Cuba, between the FARC insurgency and government officials, Colombians voted against peace in a referendum held last October. Prompted by a campaign of misinformation and fear mongering, Colombians struck down a peace agreement that would have ended 60 years of conflict and would have resolved the last remaining war in the Americas.
The peace deal, up until the very last hour, was seen as a done deal. President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC negotiators prematurely (in retrospect) celebrated the end of war in an official ceremony on the Monday before the referendum. Most pollsters gave the peace deal a very high chance of being ratified by the Colombian electorate and international organizations and foreign governments were prepping for a Colombia in peace. However, all those plans fell apart on the eve of the referendum.
