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Glhermine's maps and data

Mexico 2018 megamap
  • Here is the finished product of a crazy project: the 2018 Mexican election down to the municipal level. Always a rewarding end product but making it is long and tedious, and lots of questions like "why does Oaxaca/Tlaxcala have so many municipalities" or "were Yucatán's municipal boundaries drawn by a drunk person". Also Mexican election results are presented really annoyingly on official sources.

    j8npDC1.png


    View attachment Mexico 2018 - Municipalitie.png

    I've done similar municipal megamaps for 2000, 2006 and 2012 which I'll post as well. I'll
     
    Mexico 2000 megamap
  • Did this map a while ago, but here is the 2000 Mexican presidential election at the municipal level.

    utxaPtt.png


    Goes without saying that Vicente Fox's victory in 2000 was the PRI's first defeat in a national election. He won 42.5% against 36.1% for the priista candidate, Francisco Labastida, former interior secretary and former governor of Sinaloa, and 16.6% for the PRD's candidate, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas (perhaps most famous for winning losing the 1988 election).

    Patterns in this election, unlike perhaps in subsequent democratic ones, are fairly straightforward.

    Fox's support was concentrated in comparatively affluent middle-class urban areas, in the conservative Catholic Bajío (he won over 60% in his home state of Guanajuato, traditional and early panista/conservative stronghold) and in the more industrialized/urbanized parts of the north (usually along the US border). Labastida's best result was in his home state of Sinaloa, where he won 64%, and otherwise did best in poorer, rural areas where the PRI's old clientelistic and patronage machine was still the dominant force by miles. Cárdenas only won his home state of Michoacán (with 37%) and finished second behind Labastida in Guerrero and Tabasco (as well as second behind Fox in the DF).

    Fox won most of the largest cities and state capitals with the exception of Culiacán (Sinaloa), Acapulco (Guerrero, won by Cárdenas), Tepic (Nayarit) and Chilpancingo (Guerrero).
     
    Mexico 2020 Census population
  • I've finally gotten around to making some basic maps of the 2020 Mexican census data at the state level.

    To start off with, population growth:

    zdhT2c2.png


    For whatever reason, I can't seem to understand how INEGI calculated its average annual pop growth numbers in its executive summary presentation for the census numbers, so I calculated it myself. I'm dumb at math, so that might be it.

    According to my numbers, the Mexican population grew at an average annual rate of 1.2% between 2010 and 2020 (112.3 million to 126.0 million). This is the slowest average annual population growth since 1910-1921 (when the population shrank by -0.5% annually in a period covering a rather famous and violent part of modern Mexican history). Population growth has been consistently slowing since the 1980s, after Mexico's rapid population expansion in the post-war era (+2.2% from 80 to 90, +2% from 90 to 00, +1.5% from 00 to 10).

    The largest states are Edomex/México (16.99 million), CDMX/ex-DF (9.2 mil.), Jalisco (8.3 mil.), Veracruz (8 mil.), Puebla (6.5 million), Guanajuato (6.1 mil.), Nuevo León (5.7 mil.) and Chiapas (5.5 mil.). Colima is now the smallest state with a population of 730,000, having been overtaken since 2010 by Baja California Sur which is approaching 800,000.

    Quintana Roo (i.e. Cancún, Playa, Cozumel and Tulum), a state dominated by the tourism industry, remained the fastest-growing state (+4%) although its growth is slowing. The state, which had less than 100,000 people in 1970, now has a population of 1.85 million. Baja California Sur (i.e. Los Cabos), another state dominated by the tourism industry and which was sparsely populated until the development of Mexican mass tourism, grew by 2.5%, the third fastest.

    Querétaro had a population growth of nearly 3%. A relatively prosperous, industrialized and economically dynamic state (around the state capital of the same name), it has had consistently strong population growth since the 70s-80s. Nuevo León (Monterrey) grew by 2.4% annually, the fourth fastest. Aguascalientes grew by 2%.

    Again, no state lost population since 2010. Mexico City had, once again, the slowest growth - only +0.4% annually. The capital city's population has grown but effectively 'maxxed out' since the late 80s; population growth has been concentrated in the suburban Valley of Mexico, although population growth in Mexico City's older, inner suburbs like Ecatepec and Ciudad Neza has also maxxed out, and the fastest suburban population growth is now occurring further away in Edomex and spilling over into Hidalgo.

    Guerrero, Veracruz, Tabasco, Tamaulipas, Oaxaca, Zacatecas, Michoacán, San Luis Potosí, Sinaloa and Chihuahua grew by less than 1% annually. Sonora, Morelos and Edomex grew by less than the national average annually.

    Here is the net internal migration since 2015 (2015 had an 'inter-censal household survey'), the difference between immigrants (from another state) and emigrants (to another state).

    NXp3qR5.png


    This data is from the INEGI's presentation (link above). QRoo had the highest net internal migration balance (+6.8%), Querétaro and BCS also had +6% net migration balance. In general terms, the poorer southern states (esp. Guerrero, -4%) as well as CDMX and now Edomex (maxxed out growth) were net losers in terms of internal migration. Campeche and Tabasco may also be explained by low oil prices leading to net emigration over the last 5 years as both states, especially Campeche, are heavily influenced by the oil industry.

    I have more map ideas in mind, but if anyone has something in mind that could be mapped easily I'd be curious.
     
    Mexico 1895-2020 state population data
  • Here is the state population (absolute and share of the national population) in every census since 1895

    JwGsebW.png


    CDMX/DF peaked in the 1970 census when it made up 14.3% of the Mexican population, it is now down to 7.3% of the country's population. Edomex's population surge from the rapid suburban expansion is obvious beginning in 1970 but now it seems to have maxxed out as its share of the national population fell slightly in the last decade from 13.5% to 13.48%. Jalisco has overtaken Veracruz and is the third largest state again.

    Also noteworthy are the population surges in Nuevo León (Monterrey), Baja California (Tijuana/Mexicali) and QRoo (Cancún/Mayan Riviera).
     
    Mexico 2015-2020 population growth
  • Here's another annual population growth map, but for 2015-2020 instead. There was an 'intercensal survey' in 2015 of 6.1 million households. The population reported in 2015 was 119.5 million, compared to 126 million in 2020. Population growth nationally was 1.2% annually from 2010-15 and 1.1% from 2015-20.

    Mexico pop growth 2015 2020.png

    The map is broadly similar. QRoo leads the pack with +4.8% growth annually over the last 5 years, followed by Querétaro with 3.2% annual growth. BC is actually ahead of BCS (which is also behind Nuevo León) with +2.7% annual growth compared to +2.4% annual growth in BCS. NL grew by 2.6% annually since 2015. Yucatán's population also grew by over 2% annually since 2015.

    One state lost population since 2015 - Veracruz (around -50,000) and Guerrero and Tabasco had negligible overall growth (+7,300/7,400 or so each).
     
    Mexico age stats 2020
  • Now moving on to some age statistics.

    Mexico age stats.png

    The median age in 2020 was 29 years old, compared to 26 in 2010. This is the highest median age since at least the 1950s, Mexico's median age has been gradually increasing since the 1970s. CDMX was the oldest state, with a median age of 35, followed by Veracruz, with a median age of 31. Chiapas had the lowest median age (24), followed by Aguascalientes, Durango and Guerrero whose median age is 27.

    The age dependency ratio (people younger than 15 and people older than 64 relative to the working-age/productive age population 15-64) is 50.3, down from 55.2 in 2010, the lowest it's been since at least the 1950 again. Mexico's age dependency ratio is now very similar to that of the US and Canada, although the 'makeup' is rather different as Mexico still has a larger young population and smaller (but growing) senior population. The youth dependency ratio is 38 (45.5 in 2010) and the old-age dependency ratio is 12.3 (9.7 in 2010).

    Poorer states - notably Chiapas, Oaxaca and Guerrero but also Durango and Zacatecas - have the highest dependency ratios largely because of their large young populations. Chiapas and Guerrero have the highest age dependency ratios (62.4, 62.2). The most urbanized states have the lowest dependency ratios - CDMX (41), QRoo (41.5), BC (42.6), BCS (44.7), Qro. (45.9), NL (46.1) and Edomex (46.4). This holds true at the municipal level, where cities/suburbs have lower dependency ratios.

    CDMX does have the highest old-age dependency ratio (15.7) along with Oaxaca (15.3) and Veracruz (15.3). QRoo has the lowest, by far (6.3), followed by BCS (8.8).
     
    Mexico age groups 2020
  • Here is a map by age groups, defined by me. You may take issue with my groupings and I don't love them myself, but whatever. I think they're still useful.

    Mexico age groups.png

    0-14 - 25.3% of the Mexican population: Chiapas has the highest percentage of children (32%), closely followed by Guerrero (29%), Zacatecas, Durango (28%) and Oaxaca (27.8%). CDMX has the lowest percentage by far (18%), BC has the second lowest at 23.4%.
    15-17 - 5.2%: All state proportions are roughly similar but with Chiapas (5.9%)/Guerrero (5.8%) on top and CDMX (4.1%) on the bottom, followed by NL (4.7%), QRoo (4.7%) and BC (4.9%).
    18-24 - 11.7%: Aguascalientes (12.7%) and BC (12.6%) highest; Oaxaca, CDMX and Veracruz lowest (10.7%).
    25-34 - 15.4%: QRoo (19.4%) stands out from other states, followed by Qro. (17.3%) and BCS (17.1%). CDMX ranks fifth (16.2%). At the other hand, Guerrero (14%), Veracruz (14.3%) and Zacatecas (14.3%).
    35-44 - 13.9%: The map is very similar to that of 18-24s, with QRoo, BCS, BC, CDMX and Qro. in the first five spots and the poor southern states (Gro., Chis., Oax.) and Durango, Zacatecas in the bottom five.
    45-54 - 11.9%: Highest by quite a bit in CDMX (14%), as well as its suburbs (Edomex, 12.7%); followed by BC (12.8%) and Tamaulipas (12.7%). High in all the US border states. Lowest in Chiapas (9.5%), followed by Guerrero (10.3%).
    55-64 - 8.4%: Highest again in CDMX (10.8%), followed by Veracruz (9.4%). Significantly lower in QRoo (6.3%) and Chiapas (6.4%)
    65+ - 8.2%: CDMX (11.1%) and Veracruz (10.1%) are the only states above 10%, Morelos (9.6%), Oaxaca (9.6%) and SLP (9%) are above 9%. Lowest, by far, in QRoo (only 4.4%). Also low in Chiapas and BC/BCS.

    For the record, the proportion of the 2010 population in the same age groups:

    0-14: 28.9%
    15-17: 6%
    18-24: 12.6%
    25-34: 15.4%
    35-44: 13.6%
    45-54: 9.8%
    55-64: 6.2%
    65+: 6.2%
     
    Mexico 2020 fertility rate
  • Mexico TFR.png

    The average number of children born, at any point in time, per women over 12 was 2.1 in 2020, down from 2.3 in 2010 and the lowest in recorded history - the fertility rate was over 6 until the mid-1970s.

    Guerrero and Zacatecas had the highest (2.5), followed by Michoacán and Oaxaca (2.4). CDMX (1.6) and QRoo (1.8) the lowest. NL, BC, BCS and Qro. also had fertility rate under 2.0 at 1.9.

    From census crosstabs, here is more data on fertility:

    Localities pop. under 2,500: 2.65
    Localities pop. over 2,500: 1.94

    No education: 5.23
    Basic education (primary/middle school): 2.46
    High school (media superior): 1.31
    Post-secondary: 1.16

    Speaks indigenous language: 3.1
    Doesn't speak indigenous language: 2.02
     
    Mexico 2020 place of birth
  • So I hope this will be more interesting for people - place of birth. We obviously hear a lot about Mexican immigration to the US but there's also a lot of internal migration within Mexico as well as return migration from the US and growing foreign immigration to Mexico.

    Mexico place of birth.png

    In 2020, 102.7 million - or 81.8% of the population - lived in the state where they were born.

    21.6 million - 17.2% of the population - were born in another Mexican state than where they currently live.

    Obviously the first two maps are similar to the net internal migration 2015-20 map I made above. Generally, the poor southern states have the largest % of the population born in that same state - Chiapas (95%), Guerrero (94%), Oaxaca (92%), Tabasco (91%), Veracruz (90%), Michoacán (89.9%), Puebla (89.5%) etc.; the exception is Guanajuato (90% born in the state), which isn't a poor state.

    At the other extreme only 46.3% of QRoo's population was actually born there, vs. 51.6% who were born in another state. 56.9% of BC and 59.3% of BCS residents were born in those states, with 39% of both of those states' population born elsewhere in Mexico. Given those states' history, this isn't very surprising. QRoo is a state which grew from basically nothing since only the 70s-80s, and which today is one of the more economically vibrant states because of tourism.

    Edomex (30.7%), Qro. (29.1%), Colima (26.6%), Morelos (25.4%), NL (23%), Campeche (21.6%), Nayarit (20.5%) are the other states with 20%+ born in another state.

    Most non-native people in QRoo were born in Yucatán (237,000), Tabasco (143,600), Veracruz (128,000), Chiapas (116,600) and CDMX (100,300). Non-native people in BC are from other northern states or Pacific coast states - Sinaloa (258,500), Jalisco (133,000), Sonora (132,000) and Michoacán (114,000). Non-native people in BCS are mostly from Guerrero (68,100) and Sinaloa (46,700). In Edomex, 3.1 million residents were born in Mexico City.

    Nearly 800,000 people in the 2020 census (0.6%) were born in the United States, and nearly 415,000 (0.3%) were born in another country (US excluded). That means that 1.21 million people - nearly 1% - were born abroad. The non-US foreign-born population has grown a lot since 2010: from 223,000 to nearly 415,000 (and 149,000 in 2000). The US-born population has grown too but not as rapidly as it did between 2000 and 2010 (from 343,500 to 738,000). Besides the US the top foreign places of birth in 2020 were:

    1. Guatemala 56,810 (in 2010: 35,322)
    2. Venezuela 52,948 (in 2010: 10,063)
    3. Colombia 36,234 (in 2010: 13,922)
    4. Honduras 35,361 (in 2010: 10,991)
    5. Cuba 25,976 (in 2010: 12,108)
    6. Spain 20,763 (in 2010: 18,873)

    We can see the massive growth in the Venezuelan-born population since 2010 because of the crisis in Venezuela as well as the growth of the Honduran and Guatemalan populations, likely related to the Central American migrant crisis. The Cuban and Colombian populations have also increased pretty substantially. About one-third of the non-US foreign-born population immigrated since 2015.

    These are official numbers and you may find different numbers elsewhere. I'm pretty sure these numbers would exclude American 'snowbirds' for example who spend part of the year in Mexico.

    From the long-form census results we know that 60.3% of the US-born population has Mexican citizenship and 28.1% of the non-US foreign-born population has Mexican citizenship.

    Over 1% of the population in these states was born in the US: BC (3.5%), Chihuahua (2.5%), Tamaulipas (1.7%), Sonora (1.6%), Nayarit (1.1%) and Zacatecas (1%). Much of the US-born population in Mexico is made of the US-born children of Mexican return migrants: 72% of the US-born population in 2020 was under the age of 20, and nearly 80% was under the age of 25. In Baja California, the US-born population is a bit older - 'only' 60% are younger than 20.

    The non-US foreign-born population is highest in QRoo (1.8%), Chiapas (1%) and CDMX (0.9%). In Chiapas, the majority of them are Guatemalans - there's a long history of Guatemalan immigration to southern Mexico. In QRoo, nearly all of them are Latin American (Guatemalan, Cuban, now Venezuelan). Mexico City's foreign-born population is more diverse with ~55,000 from the Americas (US excluded) and nearly 20,000 from Europe.
     
    Colombia 1970
  • Got my hands on a full database of Colombian presidential election results by municipality from 1970 to 2002 from a reputable source (well, the official source) that appears devoid of mistakes and errors.

    So here is the controversial 1970 election: Misael Pastrana, the Official Candidate of the Frente Nacional regime (the pacted Liberal-Conservative strict 50-50 power sharing arrangement and mandatory alternation in the presidency so they stop murdering each other) in the last election of the FN, defeated former military dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, leader of the opposition populist ANAPO (a bizarre populist mix of traditionalist conservatism with leftist nationalism) by less than 70,000 votes amidst widespread suspicions of fraud/vote rigging (including an early example of se cayó el sistema/media blackout). Rojas Pinilla initially led early results but later vote dumps after a reporting blackout placed Pastrana in the lead, with claims of fraud in remote municipalities in Nariño, Sucre, Chocó and Cauca. To complete the fix in the regime's favour, outgoing president Carlos Lleras Restrepo declared a state of siege and curfew nationwide on April 21, two days after the election, alleging threats of riots and uprisings. It's quite obvious that there were irregularities and localized cases of fraud which may have been enough to change the results.

    The #rigged election led urban radical/socialist followers of the ANAPO to form the M-19 guerrilla movement in 1973, named after the date of the 1970 elections (19 April 1970), whose members of course included Gustavo Petro

    The results were
    Misael Pastrana 40.26% (Conservative-Liberal official candidate of the Frente Nacional)
    Gustavo Rojas Pinilla 38.68% (ANAPO)
    Belisario Betancur 11.68% (Conservative dissident, laureanista, ran again in 1978 against Turbay and won in 1982)
    Evaristo Sourdis 8.33% (Conservative dissident, effectively a costeño regionalist candidate)

    Rojas Pinilla won in many cities (Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Cartagena, Bucaramanga, Cúcuta, Sta Marta, Montería, Ibagué, Valledupar, Tunja, Pasto, Villevicencio) and his native department of Boyacá and some rural regions (including very Conservative rural areas in the Valle, Tolima etc). Rojas did very well in poor and low-income areas of major cities, while Pastrana won the wealthy areas of the cities by huge margins.

    1970 - Municipality.png
     
    Bretagne 1974
  • So a new book by Thomas Piketty and Julia Cagé, Une histoire du conflit politique: Élections et inégalités sociales en France 1789-2022, has made available online a real treasure trove of previously inaccessible electoral data by scanning procès-verbaux of presidential and legislative elections since 1848. There's still several holes in the data, but it's a considerable improvement on what we previously had.

    It does allows me to look at detailed results for 1974, the closest presidential election runoff (and a 'pure', old left-right battle). Here are the results for Brittany (five departments, obviously):

    MLs00kO.png


    Giscard won 56.8% and four of the five departments: Mitterrand only won the Côtes-d'Armor (with 51.5%), while Giscard won 61.1% in Ille-et-Vilaine, 57.2% in Morbihan, 57.5% in Finistère and 57.6% in Loire-Atlantique. Needless to say, Brittany's politics have shifted a lot since then.

    The traditional political regions of Brittany are very obviously visible: the ultra-clerical 'theocratic' Léon, the reactionary clerical eastern Vannetais and the eastern Ille-et-Vilaine (politically and socially similar to Mayenne) on the right, and the 'red country' of the Trégor and Haute-Cornouaille (a Communist stronghold) and the industrial regions of Saint-Nazaire and the Loire estuary outside Nantes. All major cities except for Saint-Brieuc and Saint-Nazaire voted for Giscard, most of them narrowly: Brest (53.3%), Quimper (51.1%), Lorient (51.4%), Rennes (51.1%) and Nantes (52.6%), only traditionally conservative Vannes voted by Giscard by a large margin (63.4%), all of them except for Vannes would vote for Mitterrand in 1981.
     
    Colombia 2002, 2006
  • 2002 and 2006 Colombian presidential elections at the municipal level - I made the 2002 map some years ago but never posted it here, I made the 2006 map a few days ago when I noticed that for whatever reason the Registraduría had a new website just for them (?). The 2002 results are from files which likely have a few errors in them and some missing results for whatever reason.

    I'm too lazy to do a write-up but these are Álvaro Uribe's two victories, both of them won in the first round (the only one to achieve that feat since the 1991 constitution created runoffs for the presidency). Given, you know, the conflict thing, the 2002 election was not Free and Fair everywhere (try to spot the obvious rigged results, courtesy of Uribe's swear-to-God-we-are-not-friends with chainsaws...) and turnout in a lot of municipalities was ridiculously low so the results are perhaps not very reflective there.

    Colombia 2002 R1.png

    Colombia 2006 [R1].png
     
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    Bretagne 1965
  • Presidential 1965 [R2] - BZH.png

    Charles de Gaulle won by a landslide in Brittany, with 62.6%, over 7% better than his nationwide result. He won all five departments, with his best departments being Ille-et-Vilaine (67.6%) and Morbihan (66.5%), and his weakest being the Côtes-du-Nord (-d'Armor) with 54.8%. He won 60.7% in Loire-Atlantique and 63.2% in Finistère.

    The map is quite similar to the 1974 map, except bluer. The traditional conservative strongholds are even more strikingly blue, with many results over 90% in the Léon, Vannetais and eastern Ille-et-Vilaine. Mitterrand only won the red 'blob' in central Brittany and the industrial Loire estuary outside Nantes and around Saint-Nazaire, with only a tiny handful of victories elsewhere. De Gaulle won all major cities and towns, except for Saint-Nazaire (and Guingamp), and nearly all by comfortable margins - 54% in Saint-Brieuc, just over 55% in Rennes, Lorient, Quimper and Nantes, over 60% in Brest and 68% in Vannes.

    To the best of my abilities, I tried to take into account former communes that were abolished after 1965 (this required actually looking at the procès-verbaux scans) - there were several, the most important of which being the three communes of Saint-Malo which would merge in 1967 (Saint-Malo, Saint-Servan and Paramé). However, it's very hard to find maps of old communal boundaries online, so some of them are very rough guesses.
     
    Bretagne 1981
  • Presidential 1981 [R2] - BZH.png

    1981, Mitterrand elected. In Brittany, Giscard won narrowly - with 50.8% against 49.2% for Mitterrand, a substantial swing to the left from seven years prior, when Giscard won 56.8%. Interestingly, Giscard still won four of the five departments, with the exception again of the Côtes-du-Nord. Giscard won 54.2% in Ille-et-Vilaine, 54% in the Morbihan, 50.9% in the Finistère and 50.1% in Loire-Atlantique.

    In a significant shift from 1974 and laying the grondwork for the region's future political evolution, nearly every major city voted for Mitterrand - Nantes (51.6%), Rennes (56%), Saint-Brieuc (57%), Lorient (53.8%), Quimper (57%), Brest (51.5%) and obviously Saint-Nazaire (63.7%) as well as smaller towns like Guingamp, Lannion, Morlaix, Châteaubriant and Redon. Only Vannes and Saint-Malo voted Giscard, along with smaller towns such as Vitré, Fougères, Dinan and Ploërmel. The growing urban/suburban influence of the big cities can also be seen for the first time - around Rennes, Nantes and even Brest.

    The conservative bastions of Léon, Vannetais, eastern Ille-et-Vilaine and Loire-Atlantique south of the Loire were still solid enough to put Giscard over the top, but Mitterrand now pulled well over 20%, even 30%, in some communes in those right-wing strongholds (you can see the shades of blue becoming lighter compared to 1974).

    An interesting result: Mitterrand won 69% in Plogoff (Finistère), a 20-point swing from 1974, in the wake of the large local protests against plans to build a nuclear power plant in the commune (Mitterrand, once elected, cancelled the project as he had promised).
     
    Île-de-France 1974
  • Presidential 1974 [R2] - Ile de France.png

    A rather interesting map: Ile-de-France in 1974. A very evenly divided region as always. Giscard won in Paris (56.7%), Yvelines (52.9%), Seine-et-Marne (50.7%) and Hauts-de-Seine (50.1%) while Mitterrand won in Seine-Saint-Denis (61.7%), Val-d'Oise (54.8%), Val-de-Marne (53.4%) and Essonne (54.7%).

    Some familiar patterns and results in many places, but also some more surprising results and some very clear shifts from the current map.
     
    PACA 1974
  • 'PACA' in 1974

    Presidential 1974 [R2] - PACA.png

    Mitterrand won the Bouches-du-Rhône (56.4%), Var (50.1%) and Alpes-de-Haute-Provence (53.5%) while Giscard won the Alpes-Maritimes (53.6%), Hautes-Alpes (51.8%) and Vaucluse (52.5%). Seven years later, the Var was the only department to switch to Giscard, obviously presaging its future evolution to the (hard-)right.

    Mitterrand won 56% in Marseille (no results by arrondissement, unfortunately) as well as Avignon (52%) but Giscard won in Nice (53%) and Toulon (51%).
     
    Colombia 1998, R1
  • Finally finished a map of the 1998 Colombian presidential election, first round. As always, errors are possible, although this is from the official source.

    Colombian politics were very polarized and acrimonious in 1998 in the wake of the Samper presidency, marred by the Proceso 8.000 and the catastrophic state of the country on nearly all fronts, most notably the armed conflict. Horacio Serpa, the Liberal candidate, had been Samper's interior minister and a steadfastly loyal samperista and the Liberal Party was firmly in the hands of the pro-Samper/Serpa faction. Andrés Pastrana, who had lost to Samper by just 2% in 1994, had spent four years attacking the Samper administration as illegitimate because of the Proceso 8.000, and he ultimately was able to consolidate a 'great alliance for change' led by the Conservative Party in alliance with anti-Samper Liberal dissidents, notably former attorney general Alfonso Valdivieso. The long campaign saw several attempts to consolidate an independent 'third way' tercería candidacy, which ended up being Noemí Sanín, a former cabinet minister and ambassador under both Conservative and Liberal presidents, who had resigned with fracas as ambassador to the UK in 1996. Sanín's running mate was Antanas Mockus, who had resigned as mayor of Bogotá in early 1997 in hopes of being a presidential candidate (resigning early cost him a lot of popularity and was probably the biggest political mistake of his career). Sanín ran as an independent against the old two-party system (few people at the time believed it was in its final throes and would collapse in 2002). Retired general Harold Bedoya, former commander of the armed forces who had been dismissed and forced to retire by Samper, initially had significant support in the polls but his numbers collapsed during the campaign (there's an interesting AH to be written about Bedoya leading a military coup and becoming military dictator in the mid-1990s, or, alternatively, Bedoya being elected president on a far-right hardline platform in 1998).

    The polls before the first round had Pastrana significantly ahead of Serpa, and Sanín a more distant but strong third. The results were therefore quite surprising:

    Horacio Serpa (Liberal) 34.8%
    Andrés Pastrana (Cons. coalition) 34.4%
    Noemí Sanín (ind.) 26.8%
    Harold Bedoya (ind.) 1.8%

    Sanín finished a very strong third with strong support among middle-class urban voters - she won in Bogotá (with over 41%), Medellín (46%) and Cali (39%), as well as in Villavicencio, Manizales, Armenia and Tunja (+ Duitama, Soacha and most of suburban Medellín and Bogotá). Serpa's poll-defying performance was likely due to the old ancestrally Liberal vote, outside the urban centres, showing up.

    Some municipalities in Guaviare, Meta and Casanare existed at the time but no recorded results are available for them. I'm not sure if the elections were not held there because of public order problems or if they're missing for whatever reason.

    1998 - Municipality.png
     
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