Posts tagged Alvaro Uribe

Photo courtesy of Sigurd Decroos

As was expected, the Colombian constitutional court ruled against holding a referendum aimed at changing the law forbidding  the incumbent President Alvaro Uribe’s second reelection bid as a candidate for the Democratic Security party . After all,  Uribe had already amended the constitution to pave the way for his first reelection.

The President’s effective war against the many illegal armed groups, such as the FARC, ELN, and paramilitary, as well as organized crime has allowed most Colombians to enjoy a level of security not seen in decades. Had he been allowed to participate in the May 30 election, opinion polls showed that he would have won decisively. Until the court’s pronouncement on the referendum, opposing candidates’ campaigns barely showed any sign of life, waiting on the decision.

Few analysts disagree that the country will never be able to focus its attention on its chronic poverty unless it first brings under control its most critical impediments: corruption and criminality. The Uribe administration made serious progress in both these areas and most candidates claim they will stay the course. The favorite is  Uribe’s  own pick, Juan Manuel Santos, who had been his defense minister.  It’s been said that Santos, if elected, would choose Uribe as his own defense minister, allowing his predecessor to continue his relentless fight against the  narcotics industry which at one time utterly controlled Colombia.

The fate of a country rests on these elections: any deviation from the no holds barred policies pioneered by Uribe could see Colombia drift back into chaos.