In late January, El Colombiano, Medellin’s daily newspaper, purported to have received confirmation from a government minister that President Alvaro Uribe would not seek reelection in 2010. While this would be a welcome development in a country increasingly uneasy about the uncertainty and confusion surrounding Uribe’s possible reelection bid, the chances that the president and his supporters would abandon their efforts at this stage seems unlikely.
The contentious issue of Uribe’s reelection has been the omnipresent backdrop to the country’s political scene for the past year. Throughout this time, Uribe has evaded making any formal announcement regarding his intentions. In Colombia, reelection has been fodder for intense debate with respect to both the constitutionality and legality of such an endeavor, as well as the practical consequences that reelection would effect on the functioning of the country’s political apparatus.
As it stands today, the constitution prohibits Uribe from seeking a third term. While constitutional barriers did not stop Uribe from successfully seeking reelection in 2006, he now has to reckon with the Constitutional Court ruling from his previous bid, which states that, in order to assure that the balance of powers created by the Constitution is preserved, a president may only seek reelection once.
Uribe’s reelection first became a definite possibility in early 2008, when his supporters organized a committee to promote a referendum on a prospective 2010 reelection and collected 5 million signatures from the Colombian populace. A referendum proposal on a constitutional amendment permitting Uribe to run in 2010 was submitted to the Colombian Congress later in the year. This proposal, however, was defeated by the House after a debate on the specific language used in the referendum proposal to discuss the issue of reelection. Instead, in December, the House approved a referendum on an amendment permitting reelection in 2014. At this time, the measure was sent to the Senate, where deliberations are still in progress. As part of the Senate debate, Uribe’s supporters will put forward an amendment to the proposal which would clarify that the reelection bid applies to 2010. If the referendum is passed by the Senate, it will then require the approval of both the Electoral Council and Constitutional Court before it can be scheduled.
This entire process has felt rather disingenuous. Uribe claims that his only interest is in the maintenance of his “democratic security” policy, but most Colombian observers have long been convinced that he longs for another term. Throughout the last few months, intrigue and irregularities have tarnished the inner workings of Colombia’s democracy. They have also led to unwelcome comparisons with Uribe’s nemesis, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, who recently achieved success in his own bid to end reelection limits altogether.
Aside from the general distraction caused by the time spent reading smoke signals, a certain amount of government bullying may have been responsible for the House’s decision on the referendum. According to leading newsweekly Semana, the measure “was approved by the House of Representatives after a mini coup d’état by the government in the congress at the stroke of midnight- and via some irregular extra sessions.” According to Senator Juan Fernando Cristo, by decreeing that extra sessions take place while Congress was in session rather than in recess, Uribe was essentially sending the message that “nobody is leaving until you vote on this.” It was also reported that all six government ministers presided over the vote, while advisors guarded the doors to ensure that no votes were lost.
What’s more, limit-pushing of a similar sort may taint Colombian politics in the future. The Electoral Council and the Constitutional Court may well object to the referendum due to both the procedural irregularities and strict rules which prohibit constitutional revisions that do not respond to a previous error in interpretation. A scandal regarding referendum financing is also at issue. Specifically, the foundation responsible for funding the referendum has refused to disclose information on its contributors. Semana predicts that the government will attempt to fill the Constitutional Court’s vacant seats with supporters of Uribe in order to ensure that the measure passes despite these irregularities, while a highly optimistic (from the Uribista perspective) article in leading daily El Tiempo suggests that the government feels confident that the Court will not strike down a referendum that has both the necessary signatures and the approval of congress.
The reelection issue, and the murkiness that has surrounded it, has already had a decidedly negative impact in terms of governance. As noted above, the level of transparency surrounding the matter has been insufficient. In addition, the fate of many other potential candidates hangs in the balance. As Semana notes, qualified and viable candidates for the presidency have been unable or unwilling to begin campaigning while Uribe’s candidacy remains questionable. Ironically, potential Uribista candidates are the ones most directly affected by this uncertainty. According to Colombia Reports, those few Uribistas who have decided to vote against Uribe’s reelection and organize their own campaigns have been targeted by the government.
Should the attempt to reelect Uribe prove successful, the consequences will be even more unfavorable. The country’s healthy rotation of power is at stake. A 2010 Uribe reelection would mean 12 years of uninterrupted presidential rule in a country in which the executive is invested with expansive powers in comparison with the other branches of government. The upshot of such a development could be that, if Uribe is reelected, the precarious balance of power in the country will be debilitated. More specifically, the Colombian Constitution of 1991 includes provisions which protect public institutions from overbearing presidential control by ensuring that important public appointments do not coincide with presidential terms. By the end of a third term, however, Uribe will have appointed all or a substantial portion of the members of some of the country’s key institutions, including the Constitutional Court, the State Council, the Superior Council of the Judiciary, and the National Bank, all of which stand to be increasingly dominated by Uribe and his followers. This has led both Colombians and outsiders to warn against a turn towards caudillismo in the country.
However, Uribe confronts significant obstacles in several regards. There is some (though decreasing) probability that the referendum proposal will be defeated by one of the institutional bodies. The language regarding 2010 vs. 2014 will need to be reconciled. For reasons stated above, the Electoral Council or the Constitutional Court may find fault with the proposal for a referendum on 2010, if not on 2014. In addition, even if the proposal for a referendum is passed, it is by no means certain that the Colombian people will vote in favor of a constitutional amendment. While Uribe has enjoyed incredibly high popularity, the level of support for his reelection has recently declined to around 50%.
Nevertheless, even if the proposal for a referendum is defeated, reelection could be made possible through a direct constitutional reform. In this scenario, Uribe supporters would look to the Congress to endorse his reelection bid. Reelection by this route, however, is still difficult to attain due to the fact that the constitutional reform would need to be passed twice by both houses of Congress. Given that it is already well into 2009, the clock is ticking. In the meantime, those concerned with Colombia’s potential turn for the worse can only adopt a “wait and see” approach. Colombia’s institutions have long been admired within the region, and their durability is particularly notable considering the country’s tumultuous history and the distinct institutional deficit in most neighboring countries. Whatever happens with the reelection issue, the president and his followers would be well-served by keeping in mind that those institutions are far more important than any one man.
Photo Credit: Flickr user A Look Askance
