Colombia Shrugs When Asked ‘Now What?’

If there is one takeaway from the politics of 2016, it’s to never assume voter turnout. Whether it’s Brexit supporters shocked by a Brexit win or Hungary reeling from supporter laziness, 2016 has already been chock full of electoral surprises. Colombia had its own historic upset this week when voters rejected the peace deal that would have ended the conflict with FARC. Now the government must scramble to respond in order to salvage something from those four years of hard negotiation with the FARC militia. President Juan Manuel Santos was already practicing his Nobel acceptance speech and never got around to creating a plan B, so nobody really knows what happens next. 

Why did Colombians vote ‘no’ to peace?

During Colombia’s 52-year conflict with FARC, roughly 220,000 were killed and another five million were displaced. FARC also had a reputation of extortion, drug trafficking, kidnapping and training child soldiers. That still doesn’t sit well with a lot of people and some of the communities extorted by FARC found the deal insufficient at punishing FARC.