Ad Hoc Governing Rules in Colombia

[Judi Lynn]

Ad Hoc Governing Rules in Colombia
Uribe doesn't feel compelled to respect the rule of law when it disagrees with him
Carlos Arturo Serrano Gomez
Published 2008-06-30 03:00 (KST)

Countries are supposed to be governed by laws, not by men. The tacit agreement to abide by the same standards is what guarantees stability in the present and confidence in the future. However, there will always be some people who will find this state of affairs inconvenient. For wholly understandable yet wholly irritating reasons, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe does not want our shared system of rules to apply to him.

Shortly after he was first elected in 2002, his allies in government adopted the habit of praising Uribe in glorious terms, deploring all previous administrations, and lamenting that he would have only four years in office because of a term limit. A rabid mixture of vulgar messianism and fatalistic urgency went into reforming the Constitution with the explicit purpose of allowing him to run for a second term.

Back then, much noise was made over the sudden change of mind of one member of Congress, Teodolindo Avendano, whose unexplained absence from one voting session altered favorably the required number of votes for the reform to pass.

The heat of the ensuing presidential campaign, though, quenched this controversy. The new cause for bewilderment was Uribe's systematic refusal to debate with the other candidates. His usual response was that his performance as head of state should suffice as an argument.

As soon as he was sworn in again in 2006, the question over his intentions for a third term became inevitable. And true to his accustomed practice of never feeling accountable, he has made a point of not answering it.

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