The leader of Colombia’s oldest guerrilla group, FARC has told Colombia’s voting public to blank vote in second round of presidential elections, that is, choose neither candidate, Colombia’s El Espectador newspaper reported Wednesday.
In a statement FARC leader, Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri, alias “Timochenko” invites people to vote blank at the second round of the election on June 15.
In the same statement, according to El Espectador, Timochenko said he will carry out a left coalition that can “solidly confront” the new government that takes office on August 7,
The FARC leader stated that in fact there is no actual difference between the two presidential candidates, Oscar Ivan Zuluaga and Juan Manuel Santos, and that is why he invites the voters not to vote for either of them.
Timochenko stated that the coming election is not “a choice between war represented by Zuluaga and peace embodied by Santos. It is clear that either means war,” El Espectador reported.
“An alternative would be spontaneous and massive blank vote, that is able to legally delegitimize, both neoliberal and militaristic options. There is no doubt that a surprising vote that overcome the votes of two candidates would be able to generate a political earthquake in the country,” El Espectador reported, quoting from the statement.
Timochenko added that “second it could be considered an urgent reunification of all protesting sectors and opposition, a powerful and well positioned coalition with the political left.”
In the statement, Timochenko said that even though Zuluaga “as the champion of war cares a damn”, that does not mean that Santos is “a man of peace.” He said the two candidates had scorned any transformation in the democratic content or something that involves the least change in the inequitable distribution of land and wealth in the country.
Sources
Farc invitan a votar en Blanco o a una coalición de izquierda (El Espectador)
