What Will Happen in Colombia after Peace with Las FARC?

Since November peace negotiations between President Santos' administration and the FARC have begun in Cuba, much to the regret of hardliner and former president Álvaro Uribe Velez and the Uribistas. Thanks to the Norwegian government who has made considerable efforts in silent diplomacy to bring the two parties to the negotiation table, define the agenda and the road-map. Meanwhile in Colombia, Uribe continues to criticize the peace process, stating that you don't negotiate with terrorists and that the current administration shows more interest in dialogue with "terrorism" than National security. After a period of ignoring Uribe, Juan Manuel Santos has started a first offense to silence Uribe and his followers by stating Uribe sought peace talks with the FARC himself for five years during his two terms.
What would be the chance for the peace process to succeed? What are the consequences of peace? Will there be an all-encompassing peace in Colombia when the FARC will give up its arms? What are the consequences of failure? Interesting questions...

The Domestic Colombian Armed Conflict Explained In Diagrams

Now peace negotiations between the FARC and the Colombian Government has begun in Havana, the mainstream media is writing a lot about the Colombian conflict. You can read many background articles and analyses on the conflict, however few will give you an accurate and complete overview. The conflict has become very complicated in the 64 years of its existence. 64 years, because I would like to add the 10 years of "La Violencia" (1948-1958). Right after La Violencia, the state began to orchestrate hostilities against socialists. During La Violencia approx. 250,000 people lost their lives and another 250,000 lost their lives in the years after. In those 64 years more actors and forces entered the conflict arena, making the conflict more complicated and therefore ever more difficult to resolve. For a better understanding, I will try here to visualize through diagrams the most important actors and forces of the conflict. Forces and actors have varied in time and strength of course.

The Pre-Election Fraud of the 2012 Venezuelan Presidential Elections

If you you're in power and sure you have the majority of votes in your country, there is no need to rig elections. If you still do, your attempts could only backfire (Unless  of course when you're not satisfied with simply the majority and you need a 2/3 majority in congress to be able to rewrite the constitution, as has happened in the 2011 Nicaragua elections). Hugo Chávez strengthened the electoral system considerably by introducing voting machines, better laws and procedures. Never the less he still succeeded to rig the results of the intensively negotiated  2004 recall referendum. At the time the exit polls already showed that there was a massive electoral fraud going on.  Strong statistical proof according to two different methods (Benford's Law and Cluster Analysis) came available years later, when the National Electoral Council (CNE), foreign observers and OAS countries had already accepted the results.
Chávez rigged the 2010 Venezuelan parliamentary elections by  applying pre-election fraud referred to as gerrymandering as you can read below. Now facing a close finish with Henrique Capriles in the 2012 presidential elections, Chávez' rigging needs to be even more sophisticated than in 2004 and 2010. Check out the rest of this blogpost to find out about these methods.

BACRIMs, Colombia's "New" Nightmare

Ever heard of Águilas Negras, Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia, Banda Criminal de Urabá, Los Urabeños, Los Machos, Los Paisas, Renacer, Nueva Generación, Los Rastrojos, ERPAC, Cordillera, Cacique Pipintá, Grupo de Martín Llanos, Los Nevados or La oficina de Envigado? They're Colombian BACRIMs. BACRIM, a term strategically coined by former president Uribe to be used instead of paramilitaries, stands for Bandas Criminales Emergentes that translates as Emerging Criminal Gangs. Some foreign NGO's use the acronym NIAG (New Illegal Armed Group) or call them neo-paramilitary groups. These "new" groups are mostly composed of former members of  paramilitary groups (AUC) that were demobilized since 2006 and virtually granted amnesty by the administration of former President Álvaro Uribe for all their atrocities. Now BACRIMs are growing rapidly and spreading all over the country, because new sources of income were found. They're called "el nuevo enemigo" (the new enemy) in Colombia.

The Irregularities of the Mexico 2012 July 1st General Elections

The Mexico July 1st 2012 elections had a turnout of 63.1%, which is slightly more than 2006 (59%) and about the same as in 2000. After the first count Enrique Peña Nieto (PRI-party) had 18,727,398 votes (39.10%) and won the elections. Andrés Manuel López Obrador (PRD-party) had 3,192,281 (6.67%) votes less: 15,535,117 (32.43%). López Obrador did not recognize Peña Nieto's victory, claiming there had been widespread irregularities. López accused the PRI of spending more than their allotted electoral budget, biased media coverage (Televisa) and vote buying. So how serious are these allegations and what's López Obrador's chance in this rearguard action about the presidency?