ABSTRACT

In October 2016 a majority of Colombian voters rejected the peace agreement between the Colombian national government and Colombia’s largest guerrilla force, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC). Many scholars attributed the rejection of this peace agreement to a populist discourse that was effectively disseminated on social networks by political parties and organisations that espoused former President Alvaro Uribe’s conservative ideology. This essay delves into an earlier period of populism in Colombia; it analyses the strategies and political practices that Jorge Eliécer Gaitán utilised as a presidential candidate in the 1940s. This chapter seeks to answer the question of whether there are continuities between this period of populism in the 1940s and with the conservative populist discourse of 2016 that led to the rejection of the peace agreement by the Colombian public. It argues that despite the very different political agendas some degree of continuity does exist in terms of political practices.