Considerable ink has been spilled over the results of the October 2 plebiscite on the peace accords between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Decided by the thinnest of margins, “no” prevailed by just under .3 percent, or 53,900 votes out of 13,066,025.

How are we to make sense of this outcome, and what does it mean for the prospects for peace in Colombia? How will it affect mobilization from below and the building of a new, independent left? And, most puzzlingly, why did almost two-thirds of potential voters (62.6 percent) stay home rather than weigh in on the most important issue facing the country?

There can be little doubt that in political terms, the historic bloc led by former president and current senator Álvaro Uribe was victorious, and the bloc led by Uribe’s former minister of defense and current president, Juan Manuel Santos, vanquished. It is equally certain that the two differ hardly at all on the fundamentals: both favor a militarized, export-based extractive economy powered by free trade and foreign and domestic investment, closely tied to US markets.