Take the first left? Colombia’s election

Hello and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist. In New York, I'm Jon Fassman.

And in London, I'm Jason Palmer. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

Flights from South Africa to Europe have been cancelled. Lines at petrol stations in Cameroon extend onto the highway. In Burundi, Drivers sleep in station forecourts. Africa is running low on fuel, and it's beginning to slow commerce and make governments nervous.

And off the west coast of Scotland is a tiny island called Muck. There's not much to do there, and for 50 years, that's how its owner, Lawrence McEwan, liked it. Our obituaries editor reflects on how he helped the island to prosper while hanging on to its history. But first— Voters in Colombia are getting ready to head to the polls this weekend in the first round of an election to replace Ivan Duque, the incumbent since 2018 who can't run again. It's the most important poll in the country's recent history. Mr. Duque opposed the landmark peace deal that put an end to a decades-long insurgency involving the FARC, a Marxist guerrilla group. So the deal's provisions haven't got very far under him, and violence against social leaders has been rising sharply. He hasn't done much economically either. In 2019, his signature tax reform proposals led to protests that left dozens dead. Whoever wins the election will inherit all that instability and the threat of more violence.

So voters in Colombia really want change. They're on the whole tired of a political class that many people see as corrupt and ineffective and distant.

Our correspondent Anna Lankes is in Colombia's capital, Bogotá, covering the election.

But the three leading candidates voters can choose from aren't really offering the types of reforms Colombia really needs to deal with its problems.

And what are those problems?

First, there is huge inequality. Colombia is one of the most unequal countries in the world, and it has a regressive tax system which does little to redistribute income. Then you've also had the pandemic, which obviously made that situation worse and hurt the poor the most. In 2016, a peace deal was also signed which ended a 50-year-long civil war, but it's been poorly implemented under the current government of Ivan Duque, and so violence against social leaders has increased. And then finally, there were large protests in 2019 and in 2021 against the government. So people really want change.

So in the face of those problems, who are these 3 people who would, would try to take them on?

So there are 3 front runners in the election. The first is Gustavo Petro, who's a former guerrilla, who was a member of the M19 guerrilla, a nationalist, and he's hoping to become the country's first left president in history. For the past year, he's consistently topped polls. Around 40% of voters say that they will cast their ballot for him. And his proposals are pretty radical. They include guaranteed work for the unemployed. There's around a 12% unemployment rate right now. University education would be free, and all new exploration of hydrocarbons, of oil and gas, would be banned. And oil and gas makes up around 50% of Colombia's exports. So I actually interviewed Petro and I asked him how all of this would be funded. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] His answer was effectively a series of tax reforms and also pension reforms. He would raise some taxes and he would remove some exemptions, specifically for oil and gas producers. Actually, a lot of the time he sounds more like a climate change activist than a socialist firebrand. And kind of one of his main ideas is that the hydrocarbon industry would be replaced by tourism and the agriculture industry, which is currently very small. So he wants to kind of build up those two industries to make up for the lost revenue from lower hydrocarbon exports. But there's a lot of problems with that because obviously it would take up a long time to build a large agricultural industry, and Colombia would need to have as many tourists as Argentina and Brazil combined for the tourism industry to generate the the same revenue as hydrocarbons.

But even in the face of that, it sounds like voters are liking his message.

Yes, because many people see him as a candidate that embodies change. Gustavo Petro was a congressman for a long time, and he was a really great congressman. I mean, he stood up to corrupt politicians, and some of his speeches became very famous at the time. So I went to the closure of his campaign to see what his supporters are excited about. And there were a range of views, but the word I heard most again and again was change. So here's one voter, Nicole Gomez, who's a university student. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] She says she supports Gustavo Petro because he offers change and that it's time to deal with inequality and it's time for the left to come to power. A lot of other people I spoke to said that they would vote for Mr. Petro because they think that he would implement the peace deal fully. So I spoke to Angela Martín Leitón. And she told me that a vote for Petro is a vote for peace and that any social transformation has to be built on a platform of a continuation of the peace deal.

And what about the other two candidates? They are presumably very different platforms.

Very different. So one of the leading candidates is Federico Gutiérrez. He goes by the name Fico, which is his nickname. He's a former mayor of Medellín, which is Colombia's second-largest city, and he's seen by many people as the candidate of continuity. So some of the kind of right-wing and business elite that are spooked by Mr. Petro's redistributive platform have flocked to him. He's backed by all the traditional parties, and some critics say that though he has promised to implement the peace deal, and he even said he voted for it in 2016, the fact that he's backed by parties that campaigned against the peace deal might constrain his ability to implement it once in office. I spoke to Yesid Reyes, who was a former minister of justice under Juan Manuel Santos, under whose government the peace deal was signed. He said that one of his greatest fears with a FICO victory would be that the peace deal would be abandoned and slowly left to die.

Okay. And what about the third candidate you mentioned?

The third candidate is a total wild card. So he's called Rodolfo Hernández. He's a 77-year-old construction mogul and former mayor of a mid-sized city called Bucaramanga. And he's kind of this populist outsider who surged in the polls in the past 3 weeks and is now in some polls almost tied with Fico. So he was suspended twice when he was mayor, once for slapping a city legislator and another time for meddling in an election while holding public office. He made his money building houses for the poor. His campaign has been much more focused on TikTok. He kind of posts goofy videos there and he plays on his grandfather-like charm. And his platform is pretty thin. He kind of blames corruption for all of Colombia's problems. And so he says the first thing he will do as president is to sell off most of the presidential cars and planes. He would close dozens of Colombian embassies and consulates because he says that the civil servants working there don't do any work at all. And he would only serve tap water to visiting diplomats. But the danger with Mr. Hernández is that his temperament may undermine Colombia's institutions and his style of leadership. He wants to have a daily press conference where he tells Colombians who the corrupt politicians are, and he would name and shame them without seemingly having to give any proof. And he's also expressed admiration for some increasingly authoritarian Latin American leaders, such as El Salvador's president Nayib Bukele and Mexico's president Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

So all told, you don't think any of these candidates really offers what Colombians need?

I think all three options leave much to be desired. Yet an immediate worry is what might happen right after the vote. So some people worry that Colombia is at risk of entering a new cycle of violence. If Petro loses, he could cry foul. Because in March, for example, there were legislative elections and they said that there had been fraud. And so a recount actually led to Petro gaining at least 3 more seats in the Senate. And a FICO victory could lead to another round of street demonstrations because people are sick of the status quo. So there could be post-election violence depending on what the outcome is. And Mr. Petro's life could also be at risk kind of shortly before the election. He and his vice and presidential candidate Francia Márquez, who's a rare Black politician and environmental defender in what is still a very racist region, have received credible death threats. So they now campaign behind bodyguards holding huge riot shields. So Colombian voters want change, but a spiral of post-election violence would not be the kind of change that they have in mind.

Ana, thank you very much for your time.

Thank you, Jason.

All over the world, fuel prices have been rising steeply. Africa is no exception. But across the continent, there's a second concern: not just the price at the pump, but whether there's anything in the pump.

Fuel shortages have been seen right from Senegal in the far west to Ethiopia in the east, Kenya as well, and then down in South Africa.

Ken Lee Salmon is The Economist's Africa correspondent.

It's bringing commerce to a halt. Many millions of businesses rely on generators and need diesel for those generators just to have electricity. It's even forcing holidaymakers to cancel trips or have very difficult flights home, with flights being delayed and in fact rerouted because there just isn't enough fuel. Even things like hospitals are worrying about getting drug deliveries if their delivery vans don't have fuel, or their ambulances as well can even be immobilized. And that of course makes politicians jumpy too, 'cause anger at shortages at the pump could pretty quickly erupt into the streets.

Now obviously anything having to do with fuel is immensely complex, but broadly, is this a supply issue? What's behind this?

Well, it is a number of factors, that's right. I mean, demand for fuel really surged right across the world last year as lots of economies recovered from the hit of COVID-19. And at the same time, we also saw for the first time in 30 years that the global refining capacity actually fell. And then you add to that the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that's pushed prices higher still. What's striking though is that in most places fuel has remained available, but expensive. Of course, there are a few exceptions. But in Africa, we're really seeing shortages. And in fact, I was told by one of the world's biggest oil traders that Africa's going through its worst supply crisis in 40 years. And it's not just a case that African consumers are being simply priced out of these markets. It's a bit more complicated than simply that.

So tell me how, walk us through some of that complexity.

Fuel traders generally use financial markets to try to lessen the risk of price fluctuations when they're buying fuel. But to do that now, not just is the fuel more expensive at face value, but they also have to spend more hedging when prices are both high and volatile as they are at the moment. For African importers who are often smaller than those in rich regions, they've got smaller balance sheets and so they don't have as much capital to use on the hedging. And as a result, many of them just import less fuel. And there's a second complexity in all of this, which is that the price for deliveries of oil at a future date, for which there's a regular market, has fallen far below that of deliveries of fuel for immediate delivery. In more usual times, traders would actually park kind of dozens of oil tankers, they call them floaters, off the West African coast. And they'd sit there while prices might rise. But now traders instead want to unload their cargo as quickly as possible. And so to do so, they're sending them into Asia straight through the Suez Canal and often avoiding Africa altogether.

So are these sorts of price shocks especially keenly felt in Africa?

They absolutely are, unfortunately. And one of the reasons for that is that many sub-Saharan African countries generally buy in quite small amounts, and they buy from those tankers that are floating there or sailing by. And so they buy a little bit more hand-to-mouth. And there's a second problem as well in Africa, which is that relatively few countries in sub-Saharan Africa refine much oil. Many of the refineries that are there are unfortunately pretty badly run. A number of them operate far below capacity or are just pretty small on the global scale. If you look at kind of what's happened over time, you know, refinery output in sub-Saharan Africa has fallen by about half over the past decade, even as oil demand in the region's risen by almost 20%. So that's left sub-Saharan Africa importing about three-quarters of its refined products, of its fuel on average. And that's much more than any other region. So all of that really leaves it pretty deeply exposed to external shocks.

So can good supply lines make up for that lack of refining?

Well, they could in theory, although it means there's a sort of risk if something goes wrong in your supply line that suddenly you are more exposed because you don't have those reserves or that refining capacity. And unfortunately in many African countries, troubles with supply lines, things like poor logistics or just bad management of the import process regularly cause supply shocks. Many African ports can only receive ships with quite a shallow draft, and that forces big tankers to sit offshore and offload into little ones coming in, which adds kind of grip to the process. And they're often also heavily congested, which can lead to sort of surprising or sudden delays. Obviously many across the continent are hoping things are going to improve, and these challenges do ebb and flow, but actually it may get worse soon, particularly because sanctions on Russian oil have been tightening, and complying with those sanctions for refineries in Europe can mean that, you know, the flow of fuel used to come from Europe down to Africa might be cut even more.

And in light of that, what's Africa doing to boost its refining capacity?

Well, a lot of hope and plenty of cash is being invested in a really big refinery being built in Nigeria. The project is unfortunately behind schedule, but it is hoped and expected to be completed later this year. Sadly, though, that is still an exception to this trend of declining capacity over time. And I think some of the people I spoke to, you know, hope that This particular shock might be a reminder that African countries probably need deeper strategic reserves of fuel just to weather these kinds of global shocks, but also those local supply chain troubles. So it may be that in the long run, at least, this whole episode is a useful wake-up call.

All right, Kinley, thanks so much for joining us today.

Thanks for having me on.

As soon as summer came to the Isle of Muck, which is a tiny little island off the west coast of Scotland, Lawrence McEwan would shed his shoes.

Anne Rowe is The Economist's obituaries editor.

And in bare feet, he'd run along Muck's only road to get to school. The road was 1.5 miles long. Without his shoes, he would scramble over the basalt dykes that were built by the Kelpers who used to live there before most of the people were evicted in the 19th century. And in bare feet, he would climb to the top of the highest part of Mull and look over past Rum and Egg to the mainland, the most astonishing view. It was one of the greatest beauties of the island. He would stand on the beach and there he would stay for hours simply watching the tide rolling in and out until his mother called him in for tea. He looked at the island with different eyes from other people's because his family actually owned it. It was the last privately owned island in the Small Isles. They'd bought it in 1896 when there were very few people still living there, but they had made quite a good living from it, because although it's very small, only 2.5 miles by about 3/4 of a mile, it's a very fertile place. The soil is volcanic, and so it was easy not only to graze sheep and cattle but also to grow good vegetables and even corn. So the family prospered there for quite some time, or certainly didn't do badly, until the 1960s. When his brother Alistair, who was then the Laird or Lord of Muck, suggested that they might go to Australia or else they might make Muck a summer-only place with holiday lets. And Lawrence realized at that point that he couldn't possibly consider living anywhere else. And so he decided if Alistair really wanted to move, he would stay and he would become the steward of the island, look after it. It was quite a challenge that he took on. Mull is separated from the mainland by very stormy seas. It had no pub, no church, no post office, not even a letterbox. It really had very little in the way of amenities. It didn't get any running water until 1951. It wasn't actually connected to the electricity grid until 2013. It was one of the last places in Britain to be connected, but they were used to that simple life, and it suited him so well that he didn't want to bring in all the appurtenances of the modern world. His main philosophy for the island was that it should be self-sufficient. Every family should be able to feed itself with fish and vegetables. And I guess it would bake its own bread from the corn that was brought in, 'cause I can't imagine there was enough corn there to feed them all, even though there were only about 40 people there at any one time. He tried for a while to give the whole island milk as well, free from his dairy, from his herd of Ayrshire cows. But the health and safety people noticed how he was conducting the dairy and decided he couldn't do that anymore. He was very upset about that. They also criticised the water on the island, but he again defended it and said it was as good as any bottled sort. For him, the most important part of being the laird or lord of Muck was to look after the village school. He was very insistent that there should always be children on the island, even though they had to go away at the age of 12 to be educated on the mainland. He wanted to hear children playing and shouting. He wanted especially families with very young children to settle there so that the infants would grow up with a strong sense of nature and the simple life, the same thing that he had had. Time came, however, when he was getting older and he found he hadn't got the energy to run the island anymore and had to hand over the reins to his son Colin. Who had different ideas about modernizing the place and wanted to go a good deal faster. He did, however, stand out against having any second homes there. So you didn't have the sight, which you have on many of the Scottish islands, of these shuttered houses to which people come for perhaps 2 weeks in the year. So Colin, in his own way, also looked after Mark, but what could be done with Lawrence, because he really wanted to stay on. He wanted to run the island as he had done.

When my brother wanted to leave, we considered selling the island.

And there was a film made in 2014 by a Dutch filmmaker called Cindy Jansen, which captured that time when Lawrence found it so unbearable to let go.

But I said no, because I couldn't bear to lose everything of my first quarter century of life.

But knew in a way that he simply had to. He didn't have the energy to continue to run it. Over the years that remained to him, he did become more tolerant of the way the island was going. He thought it was actually good for it to try and keep up with the times and keep up with the world. And his vision of the future wasn't really any modern-looking island of Muck at all. It was of himself lying in the little churchyard, which was unfenced, and his cows walking over him, and he lying there barefoot and quite content to be embedded in the good earth of Muck.

Anne Rowe on Laurence McEwan, who's died aged 80. That's all for this episode of The Intelligence. The show's editors are Marguerite Howell and Chris Impey, and our sound engineer is Will Rowe. Our senior producers are Sam Westron, Jat Gill, and Jonjo Devlin. Stevie Hertz is our US audio correspondent. Our producers are William Warren, Rory Galloway, and Alizée Jean-Baptiste, and assistant producer Abisoye Oshindiru, with extra production help this week from Emily Elias. We'll all see you back here on Monday.

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