Columbia’s Super Candidate Defeated!

Comics In Politics, Comics Weird, Top Story — June 1, 2010 at 16:31 Share

While last week’s polls indicated that Antanas Mockus, a candidate who dressed up in a superhero costume, might win Columbia’s presidential election, voters failed to materialize for the philosopher mathematician mayor of Bogata.

The Financial Times is reporting:

Psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs explains the result. Yes, went the thinking, Mr Mockus might make a good president. Murder rates fell dramatically during his time as mayor. He also managed the city’s accounts with prudence. But Mr Mockus would make an excellent choice in, say, Finland – not a country still on a semi-war footing. Thus Mr Santos did well in rural areas and among the poor, where the threat of violence is greatest. He also won in departments that abut Venezuela – despite, or perhaps because, Hugo Chávez once called Mr Santos “a threat” to regional stability. Ironically, the idiosyncratic Mr Mockus might have flummoxed the Venezuelan leader, while Mr Santos, scion of a wealthy Bogotá family, will be an easy foil for his socialist tirades.

Full story: Financial Times

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