Colombia: reeleccion Uribe
La cobertura internacional de los resultados de las elecciones presidenciales en Colombia.
New York Times (Estados Unidos)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/29/world/americas/29colombia.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Bush Ally Coasts to 2nd Term in Colombia
BOGOTÁ, Colombia, May 28 — President Álvaro Uribe, considered by the Bush administration to be an unswerving caretaker for Washington's drug war in Latin America, was re-elected Sunday in a landslide to a second four-year term.
Colombians gave Mr. Uribe 62 percent of the vote, with nearly all of the votes counted. Voters were apparently satisfied that he had made headway during his first term in wresting control of this country from Marxist rebels and drug traffickers. He overwhelmed the second-place finisher, Carlos Gaviria, a left-of-center former Constitutional Court justice who received 22 percent of the vote, and Horacio Serpa, the Liberal Party's standard-bearer, who garnered less than 12 percent.
"The victory by President Uribe will permit the young people of Colombia to learn about the conflict from the history books — not like us who have had to live with it," said Martha Lucía Ramírez, a former defense minister under Mr. Uribe.
Buttressed by more than $3 billion from the United States, most of it military aid, Mr. Uribe has fought Latin America's most persistent leftist insurgency while cooperating with an ambitious American program intended to eradicate drug crops through aerial spraying.
He has also supported American trade initiatives, signing a free trade treaty with the Bush administration which, if approved by lawmakers here and in Washington, would become the second-largest trade pact signed by the United States with a Latin American country.
In a region where Mr. Bush is unpopular, Mr. Uribe also represents a trusted counterweight to rising leftist populism, particularly in neighboring Venezuela, where President Hugo Chávez is relentlessly challenging American policy.
Mr. Uribe's most important accomplishments have been in security. The army, with 100,000 more troops than it had four years ago — close to a one-third increase — has taken back towns and roads once under the control of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the largest rebel group. When Mr. Uribe took office, nearly one-fifth of Colombia's towns had no police or army presence and kidnappings were out of control.
The rebels often had control of communities like the farming village of Choachí, an hour's drive over rugged mountains from Bogotá's presidential palace.
In Choachí on Sunday, farmers in wool ponchos and faded fedoras and their wives in their best clothes came down from the hills and stood in long lines to cast their paper ballots. Several of these stoic, hard-working people, used to producing potatoes and onions, said they were fed up with kidnappings, road blockades and the ever-present threat of violence.
"Now there's at least some tranquillity and you can get around," said Ángel Díaz, 61. "Before you could not move. The violence was just terrible, kidnappings, shootings."
Moments after voting for Mr. Uribe in a school here, Arturo Hoyos, another farmer, explained, "There has been peace with this president."
Mr. Uribe, though, faces difficult challenges, which some political analysts say will be particularly thorny because of his own government's bungling.
Right-wing paramilitary groups, antiguerrilla forces that were given generous concessions to demobilize fighters, are evolving into drug-trafficking cartels that control politicians and extortion rackets across the northern coast. The government has also been plagued by accusations that important agencies, like the intelligence service, have closely collaborated with the paramilitaries.
Though his popularity ratings have been among the highest of any Latin American leader — often above 70 percent — Mr. Uribe leads a loose coalition of movements that could splinter. That means he will have to move quickly to gain congressional approval of some of his most ambitious programs, including the trade agreement with the United States and revisions in the tax code.
"The challenges will not be few," said Colombia's leading newspaper, El Tiempo, in an editorial on Sunday. "The political checkbook can run out sooner than expected. Everything depends on the cohesion of the Uribe supporters and the coherence of the opposition."
Still, Mr. Uribe, the first president to win re-election since President Rafael Nuñez in 1892, is the most popular leader in Colombia's modern history. Mr. Uribe received even more votes this time than when he was first elected in 2002, when he garnered 53 percent of the vote.
Colombian presidents had been barred from seeking a second term under the 1991 Constitution, and the Congress approved an amendment permitting him to seek a second term. Many members who voted for the amendment were rewarded with jobs, a development that did not seem to tarnish Mr. Uribe's image. Nor have disclosures about paramilitary ties to the security services or the news that an army patrol wiped out an elite anti-drug police unit on Monday, killing 10 officers in a clash and causing speculation that the soldiers had ties to traffickers.
Mr. Uribe's main opponents — Mr. Gaviria, from the Democratic Pole party, and Mr. Serpa, who has run unsuccessfully for president three times — tried to take advantage of Mr. Uribe's setbacks, his sometimes caustic personality and the country's grinding poverty.
Mr. Gaviria and his party did for the first time replace a traditional party to become the largest opposition force, demonstrating that the left has future here.
There was little else to celebrate for Mr. Uribe's opponents. Mr. Serpa's third-place finish was an especially hard blow for the Liberal Party, whose influence had steadily eroded in recent months.
In March, Uribe allies took overwhelming control of the country's 268-member Congress. Four more years will give Mr. Uribe the chance to place his allies in major government institutions like the Constitutional Court, the comptroller's office, the Bank of the Republic and the electoral board.
"President Uribe has all the powers in his hands," wrote Daniel Coronell, a columnist with a newsweekly, Semana. "He will own the executive branch like never before, and be proprietor of big chunks of the legislative and judicial branches."
El Mundo (Espana)
http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2006/05/27/internacional/1148762529.html
Álvaro Uribe, reelegido presidente de Colombia con más del 60% de los votos
El candidato de izquierda, Carlos Gaviria, admite la derrota y asegura que seguirá en la oposición
La participación, del 45%, fue ligeramente inferior a la de los comicios de 2002
BOGOTÁ.- El presidente de Colombia, Álvaro Uribe, cumplirá un segundo mandato hasta 2010 tras imponerse con un 62,23% de los votos en las elecciones celebradas este domingo. El movimiento de izquierda Polo Democrático Alternativo (PDA), liderado por Carlos Gaviria, se consolida como la segunda fuerza política, con el 22,03%.
El resultado, a falta del recuento de sólo el 1% de las mesas de votación, supera el que en mayo de 2002 llevó al poder a Uribe, de 53 años. Entonces logró el 54% de las papeletas. Ahora, Uribe ha logrado el respaldo de más de 7,33 millones de los 26,73 millones de electores.
En la celebración de su victoria, el mandatario aseguró que continuará "trabajando por la patria", tras unos comicios que fueron la "expresión de una democracia pluralista".
Durante su intervención de 40 minutos en el hotel Tequendama, Uribe se comprometió además a dar todas las garantías al PDA y a Gaviria, que serán "también invitados a la construcción de consensos", puesto que no son "enemigos", sino "competidores".
Por su parte, Gaviria admitió su derrota y manifestó que "cuando uno se somete a las reglas de la democracia, tiene que ser gallardo con el adversario". "Nosotros vamos a continuar con la bandera de la oposición", añadió.
Con este resultado, el PDA se consolidó como la segunda fuerza política del país, detrás de Primero Colombia, un movimiento formado por sectores disidentes liberales, como Uribe, junto a conservadores e independientes.
'Blindaje' en la jornada electoral
Una de las notas destacadas de la jornada ha sido la baja participación, situada en torno al 45 % del electorado, ligeramente inferior a los registros de 2002, donde participó el 46,5 % del censo.
La jornada electoral se inició con un acto central en la Plaza de Bolívar, en el centro histórico de la capital colombiana y en cuyos alrededores están las sedes del Ejecutivo, el Legislativo y la Justicia, además de la alcaldía de Bogotá.
Miles de militares y policías fueron desplegados para dar tranquilidad a los colombianos. En abril de 2002, un mes antes de ser elegido por primera vez, Uribe salió ileso en la ciudad de Barranquilla, al norte del país, de un atentado con un autobús bomba que dejó cinco muertos. El hecho se produjo en medio de una violenta escalada de combates en zonas rurales con decenas de víctimas.
El presidente, que resalta como logro un plan de seguridad —apoyado por Estados Unidos— que ha reducido los asesinatos, secuestros y ataques, lideró en todo momento las preferencias para ser reelegido en primera vuelta. Además de él y Gaviria, Horacio Serpa, del Partido Liberal Colombiano (PLC) obtuvo la tercera posición con 1,39 millones de votos, el 11,82%.
El cuarto puesto fue para el ex alcalde de Bogotá, Antanas Mockus, líder del independiente Movimiento Visionarios y que concurrió por la Alianza Social Indígena (ASI).
El papel de los paramilitares
La de este domingo fue la primera vez que los colombianos acudieron a las urnas desde que fue permitida la reelección presidencial. En el siglo XIX sólo Simón Bolívar y Rafael Núñez habían conseguido este hito. Alfonso López Pumarejo fue reelegido en la pasada centuria, pero no de manera consecutiva (1934-38 y 1942-45).
También, por primera vez en la historia reciente, la guerrilla de las FARC llamaron al voto, pese a su lucha contra la desigualdad social en el segundo productor mundial de café, en una guerra expresada en constantes ataques con miles de muertos cada año.
Uribe logró un criticado acuerdo con paramilitares de ultraderecha que permitió el desarme de unos 30.000 combatientes. Pero no ha conseguido ningún pacto con las FARC, aunque mantiene contactos con el segundo mayor grupo guerrillero el Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN).
La gestión del mandatario ha sido criticada por haber desatendido medidas sociales contra la pobreza que aqueja a por lo menos al 50% de los 41 millones de colombianos y que, en muchos casos, es señalada como la responsable principal de los problemas del narcotráfico y la guerrilla.
BBC (Inglaterra)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5024428.stm
Colombia's Uribe wins second term
Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe has been re-elected in a landslide election victory, taking 62% of the vote, the country's electoral commission says. Mr Uribe, who changed the constitution so he could run for a second term, wins another four years in office.
Correspondents say his tough policies against drugs and militants paid off.
There was no major violence on election day, after huge numbers of security forces were deployed, and Farc rebels pledged not to interfere.
President George W Bush called Mr Uribe, who is Washington's main ally in Latin America, to congratulate him.
"The president spoke of the strong friendship between our countries," a White House spokeswoman said.
"The president reaffirmed his strong support for Colombia in its continued battle against narco-terrorism, in moving forward on our free-trade agreement and in helping our democratic friends in the region," she said.
With nearly all ballots counted, Mr Uribe had 62% of the vote - well over the 50% needed to win in the first round. He pledged to carry on his tough conservative policies. "With the heroism of our soldiers, we will move forward to have a more secure Colombia," he told supporters.
"Democratic security has started to regain the liberties that terrorism had taken from us."
His closest challenger, left-wing senator Carlos Gaviria, took 22%. He accepted defeat, declaring: "We're very happy with the results. For the first time in the country's history the main opposition party will be comprised of the democratic left."
The Marxist Farc guerrillas kept their promise and did not interfere with the day's voting, which passed almost without a hitch and ranked as one of the calmest days of balloting in more than a decade, says the BBC's Jeremy McDermott in Bogota.
(...) Mr Uribe has been an ally to Washington, at a time when other Latin American countries, for instance Venezuela under Hugo Chavez and Bolivia under Evo Morales, have been turning against the US. The result suggests Colombians have rejected left-wing alternatives, as well as the traditional liberal and conservative parties that have dominated Colombia's political life since independence from Spain, says our correspondent.
Safer cities
Government figures suggest Mr Uribe's hardline policies have been successful, with the 15,000 murders last year fewer than half the figure three years before, when Mr Uribe was elected, and kidnappings cut by two thirds.
There was massive security around Colombian polling stations However critics say he has neglected social policies. The Colombian government has been fighting a four-decade war against Marxist insurgents, that has left up to 200,000 people dead. The BBC's Daniel Schweimler in Bogota, says Colombia remains a very violent country, but that it is now much safer to walk the streets of the major cities. Thousands of paramilitaries have disarmed, and the government says it is in control of the whole country - though this is debatable, our correspondent says. He says also that, despite huge investment in the fight against cocaine, the supply of the drug to the West has hardly been affected.
posted by Juan @ 1:14 PM
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