"Law and Order" Candidate wins Colombian Election

[MHS2002]

CNN Article

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Law-and-order President Alvaro Uribe was re-elected in a landslide Sunday in Colombia's most peaceful elections in more than a decade, strengthening the U.S. ally's mandate to crack down on armed groups and drug traffickers.

The Harvard-educated Uribe's win marks the first time in more than a century that an incumbent Colombian leader has been elected to a second term and bucks a trend of leftist leaders taking office across South America in recent years.

With 85 percent of ballots counted, the conservative Uribe scored a stronger than expected 62 percent of the vote, easily surpassing the 50 percent needed to win in the first round and exceeding pre-election expectations.

In second place, with 22 percent of the votes, was Sen. Carlos Gaviria of the leftist Alternative Democratic Pole party. Gaviria's strong support confirms the rise of the democratic left in this violence-wracked South American nation. In third place was Horacio Serpa, of the century-old Liberal Party, with just below 12 percent.

(Rest of article continued in link)

[YoMartin]

Quite impressive. About the CNN article, this just goes to show that is not easy to speak of a left-wing "trend" in South America when you have so many different realities in the continent. In Colombia widespread violence is the main issue, in Bolivia ethnicity has grown to be a dominant political divide (also present in Peru and Ecuador as well, but not in the other countries), peronism and anti-peronism remain strong in Argentina... Chavez, Evo Morales and (probable runoff loser) Ollanta Humala are just as nationalist as they are typical left-wingers.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Actually, while I don't like Uribe, he isn't really conservative, on economics he's not much different from the left wingers he's being contrasted with.

[Hatman 🍁]

I guess we cant take over all of Latin America, eh?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I guess we cant take over all of Latin America, eh?

Actually Uribe is ideologically much closer to your standard issue western "social democrat" than most of the "leftist" leaders who've been winning elections in recent months; most are more nationalists than anything else. The main issue in Columbia is the whole civil war mess anyway,

[WMS]

Excellent news. Uribe certainly deserves his victory...and let me say that BRTD and Al are correct in stating that Uribe is not a conservative. If anything, he appears to be closer to a communitarian...how interesting than an ex-buddy of Pablo Escobar turned out to be such a good president.

And let me squeal in glee over how poorly the Liberal Party did.