Via Reuters: Colombian rightists want third term for Uribe
“We plan to introduce the bill before September, once we have gathered 5 million signatures supporting the referendum,” said Sen. Carlos Garcia, head of the Party of National Social Unity which backs Uribe and is know as “Partido de la U”.
Supporters have gathered 3.5 million signatures so far and the idea of a third term for the strong-willed conservative leader has won growing support in recent months.
While a logistical challenge, I suspect that the additional 1.5 million signatures can be gathered. The question, then, will be whether Congress will go along.
To understand what is going on here, it should be noted that in Article 155 of the Colombian constitution, if at least 5% of the citizens (as measured by the current electoral census) support a constitutional reform, it is to be sent to Congress for consideration.
The real question will be if the Congress is willing to endorse the proposal and send it along to the voters in the form of a referendum. Both chambers of congress lack a majority party, so any vote would require coalition building. However, both chambers can be said to be controlled by blocs of pro-Uribe parties (the aforementioned la U plus the Conservatives (PC), Cambio Radical, the Citizens’ Convergence Party, to name the largest in terms of seats). These parties all supported Uribe in 2006 and therefore are likely pre-supposed to support a third term. The question is whether the ambitious politicians in these groups really want to stay in Uribe’s shadow another four years.
The party within the coalition that I wonder the most about is the PC, as for them to acquiesce to a Uribe third term is to contribute to their continued marginalization within Colombian politics (they were once one of two main parties). Of course, since they haven’t offered a candidate under their own label since 1990, that ship may have already sailed1.
The article does note that some in Uribe’s coalition are skeptical of the idea:
Opposition lawmakers and some members of Uribe’s own coalition fear that a third term would allow him to dominate Congress, the courts and the central bank, disturbing the balance of power.
It specifically quotes a PC lawmaker who is distancing himself from the project (and his party?) by pegging the whole thing on la U:
“There is no guarantee the referendum bill will pass Congress, especially if Uribe does not come out and say he wants it,” said Santiago Castro, a long-time Uribe supporter from the Conservative Party and member of the lower house.
“Partido de la U is the only party that has committed to the project,” Castro said. “The rest of us still have not.”
I have been on record as being skeptical about an Uribe third term, and I certainly think that it would be an unhealthy move for Colombian democracy. Still, the notion has had stronger legs than I would have imagined a few years back. It will be most fascinating to see what happens to the Uribista bloc in the Congress should the requisite signatures be gathered.
Sphere: Related Content- They can technically claim Andrés Pastrana, who served fromk 1998-2002, but he didn’t technically run as a conservative [↩]
July 22nd, 2008 at 5:31 pm
This will be interesting. I like term limits for the executive. Before I visited Brazil in the late ’90s, they changed their term limits from “you can serve as often as you like, so long as you don’t serve consecutive terms” to “you can only serve two terms, and they can be consecutive” specifically because they wanted Fernando Henrique Cardoso to remain in office.
Of course Mexico does “one term, but it’s for six years.”
I sure hope Colombia will still have term limits. I’m curious to see what they’ll come up with.
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Colombia had a one 4-year term limit in its 1991 constitution, which was expanded to a two-term limit so that Uribe could be re-elected in 2006. If they change the constitution again just for Uribe that is too close to worshiping one politician for my tastes.