Colombia’s President Uribe smacked down in bid for re-election

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe

Hold it right there, Mr. Presidente.

It’s not often that a Latin American high court gets in the way of a popular president’s bid to keep his job past existing legal parameters. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, buoyed by his astronomical poll numbers and voters’ delight with his tough-guy caudillo image, wanted to stay right where he was.

But in a 7-2 decision that was as closely watched in Colombia as the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision after our messy 2000 elections, the country’s Constitutional Court said no way. The court barred a planned plebiscite on a third Uribe term, and thus effectively removed Uribe’s tight grip on the presidency.

Colombia’s Semana newsweekly called it like this: “The Rule of Law Defeats the Rule of Polls.” This being a reference to Uribe’s sky-high approval ratings which seemed to guarantee him favorable winds for his third term plans. Many observers of Latin America reacted with happiness to the news. In a post, Adam Isacson, Latin America specialist at the Center for International Policy, wrote: “Congratulations to Colombia. A healthy democracy doesn’t change its constitution to benefit one person, no matter how popular.”

In another lucid take on the Uribe effort, and what it means that he’s been denied the chance to stay in power, Semana paid tribute to Uribe’s charisma, efficiency, and leadership, but signaled his flaws. With Uribe, there was some bad with the good, and so it’s probably good the court didn’t rubber stamp his divine right to sit in el presidente’s chair:

[Uribe's] confrontational personality reflects his Manichean ideological vision, which doesn’t abide criticisms or dissent, and on many occasions ended up stigmatizing various sectors of society, such as opposition politicians, journalists, and human rights defenders, which had to suffer his fury and the collateral effects of being satanized by the presidency.