Will he or won't he? Colombia's Alvaro Uribe remains coy about one more run
Enjoying great popularity after suppressing guerrilla violence, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has declined to discourage a movement to let him run for a third term. But will he or won't he? asks the Houston Chronicle.
"Halfway through his second term, Alvaro Uribe, Colombia's wildly popular president, remains coy about whether he will seek a third four-year term in 2010.
"Earlier this month, he strongly hinted he would sit out the next election and perhaps attempt a comeback in 2014. Days later, Uribe said he might run in 2010 if his political allies failed to unite behind a single candidate who would continue his hard-line security policies.
"Uribe has done nothing to stop a citizen-based drive to change the Colombian Constitution to allow him to run again. For the moment, the charter prohibits presidents from serving more than two terms.
"But this month, the Colombian Congress received a petition with more than five million signatures obliging lawmakers to consider a referendum on eliminating the ban on third terms.
"'People say that he's doing good work and, if that's the case, he should continue in the job,' said Carlos Alberto Jaramillo, one of the organizers of the petition drive."
Read the rest of the Houston Chronicle article on Uribe's future here, and click here for more on Colombia.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
