The Duke, the King and Huck Finn

COLOMBIA - Report 09 Jul 2018 by Juan Carlos Echeverry, Andres Escobar and Mauricio Santa Maria

In the one thousand miles trip down the Mississippi river, Huckleberry Finn met two funny characters who went by the nobility titles of the king and the duke. They were actors interpreting a show in the towns across the river, and forced Huck to play along, and to dispense them with royalty etiquette, even when they were all hiding in the river bank. We are under the impression that this literary parody may be of some help for interpreting current Colombian politics.

There is a king, or at least a king maker, namely president Uribe. There is a duke, Mr. Duque himself; and there is a country forced to play along their act, trying to figure out who of them will actually reign.

Mr. Duque’s main concern for the time being is to choose the cast, which will be his first act of government. He is preoccupied that he might end up governing with people chosen from old, pure-breed uribistas, who would respond more to the King than to the Duke.

Now read on...

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