Colombia Poised to Expand Term of Its President

President Alvaro Uribe, the United States’ closest ally in South America, is on the verge of signing a bill whose chief beneficiary would be himself: a constitutional amendment that would allow him to run for reelection.

Presidents have been barred from serving consecutive terms since 1991, a prohibition hailed as a step forward for democracy in a region dragged down for years by strongmen unwilling to cede power.

But the Harvard-educated Uribe is banking on high approval ratings for his inroads against drug trafficking and violence to enable him to reverse the ban.

It won’t be without a fight. Critics promise to challenge the amendment in court, and the conservative president’s foes already are talking of uniting behind a candidate to unseat him in 2006, although that is easier said than done in Colombia’s fractious political world.

Opponents acknowledge that they face an uphill struggle to defeat the amendment, which has survived multiple votes in Congress and is due to land on Uribe’s desk as soon as a legislative conference committee adds some finishing touches.

But “you have to fight every fight,” said Antonio Navarro Wolff, a leftist senator who is one of the measure’s most outspoken opponents.

Navarro and others argue that democracy in Colombia, a country racked by 40 years of civil war, remains too fragile for so much power to be concentrated in one leader.

With all the machinery of state at his disposal, and squabbling opposition parties too weak to mount much resistance, a reelected president could too easily cross the line into autocracy, critics say. Recent Latin American history, they note, provides examples of second-term presidents gone bad: Alberto Fujimori, who fled Peru because of a corruption scandal, and Carlos Menem of Argentina, who lives in self-imposed exile in Chile to avoid questioning about suspected tax evasion and corruption.

Allowing a president to have a second term would “break the balance” of power, said Jose Gregorio Hernandez Galindo, who was president of Colombia’s constitutional court in the mid-1990s.

“In Colombia, we don’t have the experience that the United States has on this issue,” Hernandez said. “We’re not prepared.”

The United States, however, has gone on record in support of the amendment. In February, according to the newspaper El Tiempo, U.S. Ambassador William Wood told a group of businesspeople in Cali that “the U.S. Constitution permits presidential reelections. That’s why we don’t see this proposal as anti-democratic.”

Last month, during a visit to the seaside city of Cartagena, President Bush pledged to increase U.S. aid to Colombia, which has surpassed $3 billion since 2000. Bush praised Uribe’s efforts to combat Marxist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary groups, a campaign known as the Democratic Security plan, and for a crackdown on coca-growing that supporters say has halved production.

“This man’s plan is working,” Bush told reporters, with Uribe at his side.

Uribe’s allies have been trying to change the constitution to allow him to run for a second term since last year. For a while, Uribe remained above the fray, avoiding what might be construed as an unseemly attempt to entrench himself, but in April he came out in favor of the effort.

“The terrorists have retreated and are waiting for the end of this administration,” he said in a radio broadcast, urging Colombians to keep him on to prevent a return to widespread chaos.

A September poll found that 74% of Colombians would vote to reelect Uribe if he ran again.

“Colombia needs greater planning, especially for public order. Four years for Democratic Security is not enough,” said legislator Gina Parody, an Uribe backer. “Colombians will decide whether they want this program or not.”

Although the president enjoys strong approval ratings because of the drop in violence, analysts say that by the time of the 2006 election, issues such as the economy may dominate.

And the proposed amendment could conceivably be overturned in court. But Hernandez, the former judge, believes that, at most, lesser details may be voided without affecting the gist of the amendment.

“I’m not for the reelection law. I’m not for the president modifying the constitution to benefit himself,” Hernandez said. “I don’t like it, but I do recognize that Congress has the right to change it.”