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Weekly Report - 28 February 2013 (WR-13-08)

COLOMBIA: Santos on back foot as strikes multiply

“To start with, I’m scared, panicked with my popularity - 90%. My kids say ‘Dad, congratulations’, and I tell them, ‘Don’t be so stupid! We can only go down from here.’” Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos uttered those words. Almost two years later to the day, his popularity has fallen by half to 44%. Back then, armed with a massive congressional majority, his re-election in 2014 was viewed by many as a formality. Now with workers at the country’s largest coal mine and coffee growers nationwide on strike for the first time in over two decades; a lack of progress in peace talks with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarios de Colombia (Farc); and constant sniping from his predecessor Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010), re-election looks a dim prospect.

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