Presidential Elections in Colombia

Ok, so it is time to place my opinion on the upcoming elections that will happen in Colombia this weekend. Who is my favourite candidate? I must admint that I am still supporting Alvao Uribe. I don't get to vote for these elections, as I live very far away from the country now, and I never got to register on time to vote. You know, it never made any sense to me that the deadline for registering to vote was like december of last year, it was january when I contacted the Colombian consulate to see if i could register to vote, and they told me it was too late already. Oh well, I gues I just wasn't meant to vote. Too bad, as I would have liked to partcipate in the decision making of my country, which i am still very much attached to, but still, it is not like my vote will make a huge difference. However i do like to participate, and be part of every democratic decision making.

Why am i supporting Alvaro Uribe? I think at this point in the country he is the most highly qualified person to govern the country. This is very unfortunate, as it shows a lack of proper lieders there. I never really agreed with Uribe on modifying the Colombian constitution to get to be reelected, as I always thought this is like changing rules in the middle of the competition. I never thought it was right to do what he did. When he was elected for the first time he should have known that he was signing up for only one term in the presidency, and not any time longer than that. It is also a bit scary when a person is granted too much power for too long, and this is what we are seeing in Colombia right now. Uribe loves power, and he seems to be getting too much of this for himself, and a longer period of him in presidency might get to his head, and we might see some authoritarian signs down the road (which some claim to have seen already).

Uribe did show some results during the last four years, there is a generalized sense among Colmbians that things are better there, and especially during the first two years of his government results were evident. However, I still think that the end of Uribe's work should be at the end of this term; He should not want to go for another 4 years to "complete" his work. Uribe's work wether is too much, or too little should be about to be finished, as under normal circumstances he should have gone for just one term.

As I said above, inspite of all this I still think taht Uribe is the better person to govern Colombia at this point. I don't think that any of ther otehr candidates full has what it takes to govern the country and at least uribe has demonstrated that he can do it. And I still do believe Uribe can do a lot more for Colombia. Let's just hope that if he does get elected, the power doesn't get to his head. Carlos Gaviria is the candidate from a socialst party (polo Democratico), which I still don't trust fully as it is a descendent from the former guerilla group M-19. I must admint I don't know Gaviria toomuch, but his socialist ideology makes me believe he is not the right person. horacio Serpa, going for his, what is it, his FOURTH? shot at presidency… He should really have given up already, especially after he promised during the last elections that he was not going to go for it anymnore, but yet he still comes trying to get elected. He just doen't have what it takes.

In summation, my support goes for Uribe. Some polls indicate that he will be elected this weekend, during the first round of elections, and let's hope it is this way so that we don't have to go through the whole thing again on a second round. Hopefully from next Monday Uribe will be able to only worry about governing our troublesome country.

D.