Ever since Colombia signed its fragile, contested peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in November 2016, the big question has been: What will this no-longer-armed insurgency do next?
On Aug. 28, the FARC made its official reply. In its first congress since disarmament, the Marxist guerrilla group unveiled Colombia’s newest political party: the Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del Común, or Commoners’ Alternative Revolutionary Force.
“The new party will be built with many voices and diverse ideas,” announced Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri, the FARC’s top commander, via Twitter.
In keeping their well-known acronym but setting aside the violence, the FARC seems to be embracing the opportunities and obligations of the 2016 accords. These enabled former combatants to participate in Colombia’s political system after disarmament – including, controversially, allocating the group 10 congressional seats for a period of two four-year terms.
As the campaign season for the 2018 presidential and congressional elections heats up, everyone is now wondering whether this insurgency turned political party can find its place on Colombia’s political stage.
New horizons
For five decades, the FARC used violence to push its Marxist agenda of land reform and anti-capitalist revolution, forestalling political solutions to social problems and silencing the voice of millions of Colombians.
In doing so, it also launched a roiling armed conflict that turned eight million people into victims of homicide, terrorism, grievous injury and displacement.
The FARC maintains that it resorted to armed struggle because the Colombian political elite ran the country like a caste system, ignoring the struggles of the rural and peasant classes, which for much of the 20th century accounted for 70 percent of Colombia’s population.
The FARC is now hoping to position itself as the party for these marginalized voters. To succeed, it must develop new organizational capacities, including the ability to process internal dissent and debate while maintaining party unity – a tricky feat considering that several FARC units have already reneged on the peace agreements.
It must also build a political platform that can reach a wider segment of the Colombian electorate. Today, three-quarters of all Colombians live in cities. Voters in Bogota or Cali do not necessarily share the needs of the rural sectors that shaped the FARC’s political agenda.
The FARC’s leadership is clearly aware that low popularity is a weakness. Recently, FARC leadership invited the former soccer star Rene Higuita to run as a FARC congressional candidate, and they have made other clear bids to attract the general population.
There is certainly room for new voices in Colombia’s political debate. In the past, peace and security have topped Colombians’ list of concerns. But since the peace process, voters have turned their attention to other issues,