Via Bloomberg: Colombia Risks ‘Nascent Democracy’ as Court Reviews Term Limits
Colombia’s constitutional court began evaluating today a proposal for a referendum that could pave the way for Alvaro Uribe to become the country’s first president since Simon Bolivar to govern for more than 10 straight years.
Uribe, who four months before a scheduled presidential election still hasn’t said he wants to run, remains the most popular choice among voters, according to a poll by Bogota-based pollster Datexco Company SA. The court is expected to rule in the coming weeks on whether legislation setting up the referendum and its approval by congress were constitutional.
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If the referendum goes ahead, 47.5 percent of Colombians said they would participate in it, with 85 percent of those who intend to vote saying they would cast their ballot in favor of Uribe running for a third term, according to the Datexco survey of 1,200 adults taken Jan. 28. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.
Timing may also be an obstacle for Uribe. Candidates must declare by March 12 their intention to run in the May 30 elections and a referendum may take three months to organize, Carlos Ariel Sanchez, head of the National Registry, has said.
“It depends first on the constitutional court, then on the Colombian people at the ballot box, and thirdly on the hand of God,” Uribe said in October.
I have thought this matter dead more than once, so I am not ready to declare it dead now. However, the timing does increasingly look problematic.
Meanwhile, the likely uribista candidate (should this not work out to Uribe’s assumed preference), Juan Manuel Santos is willing to run if Uribe asks him to do so (via El Tiempo): Juan Manuel Santos dijo que sólo se inscribirá como candidato presidencial si Uribe se lo solicita
