Colombia Congress OKs referendum on Uribe seeking reelection

[Agnapostate]

This is a week old.

Reporting from Bogota, Colombia - Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has cleared the last legislative hurdle to running for a third term, a prospect that his U.S. allies look upon with ambivalence.

By a vote of 85 to 5, the lower house of Congress late Tuesday greenlighted a voter referendum early next year that could pave the way for Uribe to be on the May presidential ballot. The Senate approved the measure last month.

If he does run, it would be the second time Uribe has circumvented a constitutional ban on reelection, a measure many Latin American countries put into law to prevent the ascension of caudillos, or political leaders who have kept themselves in power.

[...]

Curious. The pursuit of such a referendum gets every Internet rightist in existence identifying you as a power-crazed lunatic seeking dictatorial status for life if your name is Chavez, but gets quietly passed over in favor of warm and glowing praise of your pleasant cooperation with the IMF if your name is Uribe. We all know how impossible it is for white neoliberals to be dictators in South America, after all.

 

[samsara15]

Definitely a double standard at work here. Not surprising, from the same people who have defined torture as a basic necessity for keeping order and the public safety in any good government.

 

[Agnapostate]

And let's not forget the indignation about Manuel Zelaya's nonbinding referendum on that question and the rightist defense of the anti-democratic coup that followed.