COLOMBIA | “Intelligent austerity” The finance minister, Mauricio Cárdenas, submitted the 2016 budget to congress on 29 July for Col$215.9tn (US$79bn) based on 3.8% GDP growth. The budget is up by 2.5% on 2015 but with inflation at 3% it is smaller in real terms. Cárdenas said that being “a serious and responsible government” the budget took into account “the new economic reality” of low oil prices. Exports fell by 31.2% in the first half of 2015 compared to the same period last year to US$19.26bn, according to the national statistics department (Dane).The principal reason for the decline was a…

Registration for legislative elections on 6 December got underway this week. While the government frontloaded its list of candidates with the First Lady Celia Flores, some cabinet heavyweights, singers and sportsmen, the national electoral council (CNE) rejected the application of María Corina Machado to run for the opposition coalition Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD). Machado won more votes than any other candidate in the 2010 legislative elections and her exclusion is a major blow for the MUD. In a sign of the tension that is likely to build as the electoral campaign unfolds, a youth was shot dead in…

Campaigning for Colombia’s regional and local elections on 25 October got off with a bang. Voters will elect the governors of the country’s 32 departments, and the mayors of 1,119 municipalities, as well as local deputies, councillors and members of local administrative councils. The campaign for Bogotá will be especially fiercely contested. Within 48 hours of the registration deadline, the first debate was held between the five candidates with a realistic chance of winning the second most important elected post in the country. But for once there is nearly equal focus on the candidates standing in conflict-torn areas of Colombia.…