Posted on 11/14/2009 10:09:43 AM PST by jazusamo
BOGOTA, Colombia -- Colombia's top electoral body ruled late Thursday that millions of signatures endorsing a referendum on President Álvaro Uribe's second re-election bid are invalid, dealing a major setback to the president's contentious bid for a third term.
Colombia's National Electoral Council said the organization of Uribe supporters that obtained the signatures had spent about six times the legal limit in their campaign to change the constitution. Voters must approve the change before Mr. Uribe can run in elections scheduled for May.
A spokesman for Mr. Uribe declined to comment. Luis Guillermo Giraldo, who headed the vote-gathering effort, said in a radio interview that the electoral judges had overstepped their mandate and their finding was plagued with "irregularities." He vowed to appeal the decision.
Mr. Uribe is enormously popular in Colombia, mostly because his tough military campaign has beaten back the country's communist guerrillas who a few years ago threatened to overrun the capital of Bogota. But many Colombians, including a good number of influential former Uribe supporters, feel that Mr. Uribe's bid for an unprecedented third term could seriously damage the country's democratic institutions.
For instance, such critics say a third term would allow Mr. Uribe, who has been in power since 2002, to name the majority of the members of the country's constitutional court -- which in January is expected to rule on the legality of the proposed referendum.
Mr. Uribe's re-election bid is part of a controversial regional trend in Latin America where politicians in power, ranging from Venezuela's Hugo Chávez to Ecuador's Rafael Correa, have changed the constitutions of their countries to abolish term limits. In June, Honduras's President Manuel Zelaya was ousted by soldiers when the Honduran Supreme Court ruled Mr. Zelaya was illegally pushing to change that country's constitution in a similar bid...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I didn’t know ACORN was also in Colombia.
It appears Colombia is better at thwarting election fraud than we are. We allowed ACORN, McCain Feingold and our lib press to mock our Constitution, and we have this Jackass Administration to show for it. Colombia adheres strickly to it’s own Constitution and stops their two-term president from becoming a dictator... I’m proud for them.
American citizens stand behind Colombian law and order, while our president chose the WRONG SIDE. He’s with Ortega and the Catsro Bros on this one. He wants the dictator back. What a tool.
This isn’t fraud, but it’s not a good thing, either. Uribe has done a great job, but he is limited to 2 terms and he should not try to make an exception for himself. This is what Bloomberg did (although he hasn’t done a great job) and it’s always a mistake because the person who considers himself so indespensible somehow winds up undoing all the good he did in his first two terms.
Though President Uribe has been a good leader and fought communists and the drug lords I believe the people are right in preventing him from running for a third term. The people of Honduras are protecting their Constitution and it looks like Colombians are also, good for them.
It wouldn’t be a surprise would it?
They didn't change their name to Community Organizers International just because the old name had become tarnished.
Uribe’s done a great job in Colombia, but he needs to step down and turn the job over to a successor - hopefully a handpicked one. If any individual is indispensable to the working of a constitutional republic than it’s not working the way it should.
I absolutely agree and their are other honest people to take the reins.
there - sheesh
LOL!
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