El Tiempo reports (Juan Manuel Santos intenta consolidar los votos de ‘la U’ para el referendo reeleccionista) that ex-Defense Minister Manuel Santos, a favorite to win the presidency if the referendum to allow Álvaro Uribe to run for a third term does not pass, met with members of La U (a key part of the uribista coalition today) to try and ensure that the party’s 31 votes would go in favor of the reconciliation package that has already passed the lower house and would, if passed, go onto review by the Constitutional Court and then to the voters.
Santos’ behavior here fits into a broader tableau of odd behavior by a variety of Colombian political actors1 who appear to be eschewing their own political ambitions to work towards Uribe’s re-election. One wonder how much of these actions are fear of the political power of Uribe, actual belief that Uribe is the best option for Colombia’s future, or is one of the more impressive displays of political kabuki in recent memory (i.e., these actors are behaving as if they want the thing to pass, whilst hoping that it will fail).
The conciliation packet needs 84 votes to pass. The chamber is scheduled to meet at 3pm this afternoon.
Sphere: Related Content- Specifically party caucuses in the Senate which voted for re-election whilst also planning to offer their own candidates in 2010. Why vote to allow a popular incumbent to run against your candidate? [↩]
August 25th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
The variations on the preliminary head counts in the House are interesting.
I am not sure when we will actually know; that story was time-stamped 4:10 Bogotá time.