Nothing up his sleeve.
Here’s what Juan Manuel Santos doesn’t have: He’s never been elected to anything. He’s terrible at giving speeches. He didn’t join Uribe until relatively late in the game. So why is he the front-runner to succeed Uribe? What’s his secret?
La Silla Vacia has published a long, interesting essay to answer that question. In a nutshell, Santos is an excellent politician. He always manages to pick the winning side. He has a history of accomplishing tricky policy victories. He’s a technocrat and a pragmatist. He’s a team player.
In that sense, Santos is very different from Uribe: He builds teams, recognizes the importance of having highly expert lieutenants, and he sticks with them through good and bad.
Technocrats love Santos because he listens to them, but above all because he’s able to get things done.
Finally, if Santos hadn’t gone into politics, he would have been in line to take the reins of El Tiempo, one Colombia’s largest, most influential newspapers and a backer of Uribe. La Silla Vacia suggests that Santos’ media influence goes even further:
Beyond his family’s newspaper, because of his past as a journalist and because he moves in the same social circles, Santos is personal friends with Julio Sánchez Cristo, María Isabel Rueda and Felipe López (owner of La Semana) among other influential journalists. This means that his version of the facts carries significant weight in the news que le atañen. Santos is the magician of spin.
Thus far, the polls indicate that Santos would not win in the first round of a presidential vote. But since Uribe failed in his bid to run for a third term, Santos’ numbers have been rising. As La Silla Vacia put it, “People like to vote for the one they think will win.”
The Nation has a long, wonky, wonderful article on Mexican maize cultivation, the effects of NAFTA, and the dangers of genetically-modified seeds. Author Peter Canby backs up his excellent writing with piles and piles of meticulous research. Not to be missed. [
Hitmen have assassinated the PRI candidate for governor of Tamaulipas State, Rodolfo Torre Cantú. Torre was gunned down along with six others at about 10:30 this morning on a highway on the way to a campaign event. Drug mafias are assumed to be responsible. [
Chile earthquake news roundup: Day 3
Everyone’s favorite photo: Emol.com has the story behind the above AP photo, which has become emblematic of both the devastation and the hope found in the wake of Saturday’s monster earthquake. The man in the picture, Bruno Sandoval, is an artist living in the coastal town of Pelluhue. He was out of town the moment the earthquake hit, and returned to find the place completely wiped out by a tsunami.
The death toll: Official government statistics now put the death toll at 763. The majority of the deaths took place in the south-central part of the country, where the epicenter was located. Only 38 people died in the capital, Santiago, located some 200 miles north of the epicenter. The official count of the missing stands at 19.
The controversy: The Chilean military (specifically, the Navy) has admitted it made “a mistake” by not immediately alerting the coastal areas to the possibility of a tsunami. The military says the mistake was minor because other emergency response systems kicked it and told people to move to high ground in time, but had it immediately passed on the multiple warnings it received from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association scientists, people would have had an addition 10-15 minutes to get to safety.
The looting: Total chaos is reigning in parts of the country hardest-hit by the earthquake. Everything from grocery stores, to pharmacies, to ATMs have been completely emptied in Concepción. Terrified residents are forming little vigilante squads to guard their homes. One mayor went on the radio and basically panicked in public:
The government has deployed 6,500 elite troops to the hardest-hit areas, meaning that perhaps the worst is over as far as public safety is concerned. In the video below, from a couple days ago, government security personnel allow people to carry off food and other essentials, though the looting of electronics can also be seen.
The plan: President-elect Piñera says he’s working on a recovery plan called “Levantemos Chile” (“Rise up Chile”). Some early estimates say the damage from the earthquake is going to cost as much as US$30 billion to repair, though Piñera says that “as we deepen our investigation and continue analyzing the situation, we’re finding damage that’s much greater than the initial estimates.” Piñera takes office in 10 days.