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Popular Uribe Has No Counterpart in Colombia
January 12, 2006
With every number in his favour, the president seems set to stay in office for an additional four years.
Abstract: (Angus Reid Global Scan) Gabriela Perdomo - Colombians are not used to having a president-candidate.
(Angus Reid Global Scan) Gabriela Perdomo - Colombians are not used to having a president-candidate. The re-election of the head of state was unconstitutional until November 2004, when the Colombian House of Representatives voted 113-16 to pass legislation to allow it.
Current president Álvaro Uribe is popular. His approval rating has never dropped below 60 per cent since he took office in 2002. According to the latest Invamer Gallup poll, Uribe will win the election scheduled for May 28 by an ample margin—66.5 per cent of respondents said they would vote for him.
Uribe's opponents hardly reach double-digits. Organization of American States (OAS) ambassador Horacio Serpa of the Liberal Party (PL) has the support of 13.9 per cent of respondents. Senator Antonio Navarro Wolff of the left-wing Independent Democratic Pole (PDI) has five per cent, while former Bogotá mayor Antanas Mockus—who has not launched his campaign officially yet—has 4.3 per cent.
Another poll by Yanhaas gives Uribe a wider margin of victory. The survey says he will get 73 per cent of the vote. Serpa will only get five per cent; Mockus and Navarro Wolff even less.
The opposition is clearly fragmented. Uribe was once a member of the PL, but his somewhat right-wing policies have distanced him from it. His major supporters now come from the Conservative Party (PC) and numerous new political organizations that have been created by his followers—the "uribistas"—such as Radical Change (CR) and the Party of the U.
Both the PL and the fairly new PDI now share a common task: serving both as counterbalance and watchdogs of the government. However, the two parties are struggling internally to maintain their very unity.
Former Colombian president César Gaviria—a former OAS president—is attempting to lead the LP towards the creation of a united opposition force against Uribe. Gaviria said last month that his is willing to form a coalition with the left to force Uribe into a second round. The electoral system requires a second round if no candidate gets more than 50 per cent of the total cast ballots.
Gaviria is a well-respected personality in Colombia. He served from 1990 to 1994, and his presidency was regarded as positive by most citizens. He instated an open market economy, which boosted employment rates, and a stronger exporting industry.
However, Gaviria's task is titanic. Identifying the liberals with the left is not well received by many Colombians. Contrary to what is happening in other areas of Latin America, the left is still a very weak force in this South American country. Some attribute this to the fact that "left" is still akin in people's minds to "communism"—a concept that immediately evokes four decades of Marxist guerrilla warfare that has left thousands kidnapped, displaced and dead.
Uribe's promise of fighting the guerrillas by strengthening the national army captivated the disappointed minds of Colombians, who witnessed the failure of the peace dialogues with the main armed group—the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)—during the government of Andrés Pastrana from 1998 to 2002.
Uribe's main weakness is his rapport with the paramilitary groups, illegal armies formed during the early 1980s to fight attacks from the FARC and other guerrillas. They gathered in 1997 under the umbrella of a military-like hierarchy known as the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC).
All factions of the AUC have promised to lay down their arms before Feb. 15, under an agreement signed with Uribe's government in July 2003. Uribe has been widely criticized both nationally and internationally for being too lax with the paramilitaries, who are accused of perpetrating monstrous massacres and other crimes.
The biggest challenge of Uribe will only arrive after the May election. He has to prove that the Peace and Justice Law, establishes this year as a framework for the demobilization of all illegal armed groups, is effective and just to both perpetrators of crimes and their victims.
The outcome of the presidential race appears to be clear. Uribe will most likely stay in office for another four years. However, it is on Mar. 12—the date of Colombia's legislative election—when the opposition will have an opportunity to offset Uribe's power. The outcome of that ballot will define the future of a country that has enjoyed the reputation of being one of the most stable democracies in Latin America for the past few decades.