Andean Group
Support for Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe recovered in December after suffering a fall in the third quarter of 2004. An opinion poll published by Invamer-Gallup on 20 December indicated that President Alvaro Uribe's approval rating rose to 77% from 72% in September.
Even when his approval was on the decline, Uribe was Latin America's most popular leader, but this upturn in his fortunes is particularly well timed. In December the bill to allow presidents to serve a second term in office was passed, paving the way for Uribe to run for another four years in 2006.
At this stage Uribe appears a shoo-in. The legislation passed in December even contained a clause stating that the constitutional court could not overturn the bill, which removed a major obstacle for the president. Many opponents of re-election were relying on the constitutional court, which has clashed a number of times with the president, to expose the irregularities in the bill's passage.
Although he enjoys considerable support, Uribe will be wishing the election could be tomorrow because 2005 threatens to be a difficult year for the president. In order to secure the passage of his re-election bill, the president used up a great deal of his political capital. It came as no surprise when the government pulled the plug on its proposed tax reforms on 7 December - the first time such a package has failed to make it through congress in 30 years.
Aside from the fact Uribe will have to devise a new package of reforms which will be no more popular this year, the president also has to push on with devising a law to cover the 20,000 or so paramilitaries currently in the process of demobilising. There is already intense pressure on the government to clarify the legal status of these paramilitaries, who belong to the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC). Most paramilitaries have committed a crime of one sort or another, and many are accused of carrying out crimes against humanity.
The government has resisted pressure to draw up legislation at this stage, arguing in public that it is first important to allow the demobilisation process to get established as it enters its key phase. More likely the government doesn't want to put its name to legislation which might deter the AUC from disarming. This delaying tactic might well fail, however; the paramilitaries said on 21 December that 'substantive negotiations' would only begin in 2005. The implication was that the disarmament of some 2,500 fighters in the second half of 2004 was purely a goodwill gesture; the paramilitaries made it clear that the demobilisations will only continue this year if the 'political, juridical and socio-economic conditions' which the AUC has demanded are in place.