Social Validation, Institutional Distrust, and the Rise of Digital Activism in Congress

When Bureaucracy Lets Democracy Drift

In Colombia, bureaucracy has hardened into a rigid, politicized, and opaque maze. Between delays that stall, audits that fail to deter, and controls that do not correct, legislative management has acquired labels that are hard to shake: inefficiency and disrepute. Transparency International’s 2024 index placed Colombia at 39/100 and 92nd of 180 countries: a step backward from the previous year. The underlying message is unambiguous: perceived corruption erodes trust and, with it, the legitimacy of the institutions that ought to channel democratic conflict and hope.

That distrust is not rhetorical. Opinion panels and surveys released in 2024 and 2025 rank the Congress of the Republic among the country’s worst-evaluated institutions by both elites and public, a pattern repeated across multiple measurements and headlines. When most people believe “nothing good happens there,” the ground is primed for a different promise: fewer procedures, more backbone; fewer credentials, more “authentic voice of the people.”

From Skepticism to “Screen Representatives”

Amid inter-party primaries and open lists, figures emerge whose main credential is not a doctorate, a technical career, or a public record, but rather a digital community. The story is familiar to anyone who opens a shop at dawn or studies late to graduate: if the system does not respond, one turns to whoever “responds” on a phone.

So, it is no surprise that, in the Pacto Histórico primary on October 26, 2025, that script took on flesh. Walter Alfonso Rodríguez Chaparro, known online as @MeDicenWally, won 137,821 votes (5.89%) for the Senate list, placing among the top vote-getters. In parallel, creator Laura Daniela Beltrán Palomares, @smilelalis, obtained 26,718 votes, ranking second for the Chamber of Representatives in Bogotá. National media covered both results between October 27 and 29, 2025.

What Exactly Does the Public Validate When It Validates an Influencer?

From the vantage point of behavioral psychology and electoral sociology, voter validation of candidacies with limited formal academic training or scant professional experience in public affairs has less to do with “ignorance” and more with rational shortcuts under uncertainty:

• Affinity and parasocial heuristics. Audiences “know” the person they see live every day: they hear the voice, follow the routine, enjoy the humor. A parasocial relationship forms that narrows the distance between representative and represented.
• Outsider signaling. In an environment where Congress scores poorly on trust, the “non-politician” identity becomes a valuable signal, promising to break bureaucratic inertia and clientelist networks. Data on distrust and corruption perceptions reinforce this collective reading.
• Attention economics and algorithms. Platforms that reward controversy amplify reach and simplify messages. Binary moral framing (people vs. elite; honest vs. corrupt) enables quick decisions at the ballot box.
• Information costs. Comparing résumés, reports, and bills takes time few can spare. Endorsing the “already familiar” candidate lowers that cost.
• Confirmation effects. When perceptions of corruption are high, any denunciation fits the dominant narrative; and when voters believe “the usual suspects always fail,” the promise of a fresh start is overvalued.

Colombia as Evidence of a Mismatch Between Institutional Supply and Citizen Demand

Colombia faces a gap between institutional supply (procedures, committees, rules) and citizen demand (visible responses, simple procedures, tangible results). Recent reports on state trust and regulatory effectiveness, from the OECD to local studies, describe how tangled norms and uneven implementation discourage compliance and fuel skepticism. This climate makes “problem-solvers” from outside the system, digital activists with a troll-like edge, electorally competitive.

What Do Entrepreneurs, Small Businesses, Vendors, and University Students Perceive in This Trend?

From a business-and-everyday perspective, three impacts stand out:

1. Representation of everyday economic interests. Anyone billing daily needs certainty: clear rules, fewer dead times, and basic legal security. Outsiders’ promise of “agility” is attractive when lived experience with red tape suggests the opposite. Yet the ability to turn promises into legislative craft is ultimately what determines regulatory outcomes (streamlining procedures, tax regimes, oversight and enforcement).
2. The expectations–frustration cycle. If validation rests on charisma and screen time rather than mastery of committees, budgets, and cross-party negotiation, the first collision occurs in the process: drafting, brokering, and passing a bill requires skills that rarely fit into a viral thread.
3. The information market. For SMEs and routine sellers, the decisive question is “how does this reform affect me?” It is on the bridge between the post and the decree—between the like and the transitional article—where a representative’s competence is truly tested.

Two Proper Names as a Symptom of Drift, Not an Exception

The rise of @MeDicenWally and @smilelalis did not occur in a vacuum; it distills a social mood weary of case files and corruption scandals. Their vote totals —137,821 and 26,718, respectively— serve as thermometers of an era in which validation is granted to those who translate indignation into a simple narrative and promise to “move the needle” without asking permission from bureaucracy.

For the productive electorate, citizens, entrepreneurs, SMEs, commerce, academia, the question is not whether the critique is justified, but whether representation achieved in this way is competent enough to reform what it criticizes.

Between Catharsis and Construction

Democracy needs catharsis, but it endures through construction. Social validation of candidates with strong digital capital can signal a healthy opening to new voices. It can also be a mirage if indignation is not coupled with public craft: studying files, negotiating text, measuring impacts, and rendering accounts.

In a country where perceived corruption is high and trust in Congress is low, the shortcut, “fewer credentials, more closeness”, is tempting. Yet for that bet to deliver on its promise to the shopkeeper who opens at dawn or the vendor who closes the register at midnight, competence cannot be a luxury. It is the only safeguard against repeating the very cycle of disappointment that, paradoxically, explains this ascent.