Pubdate: Sat, 12 May 2001
Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Copyright: 2001 Associated Press
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/27
Author: Jared Kotler

HARD-LINER SURGES IN COLOMBIA POLLS

BOGOTA -- In a country fed up with rebel violence and skeptical of peace 
talks, a hard-line politician is riding a tide of public anger that could 
carry him into Colombia's presidency.

While some label Alvaro Uribe a right-wing extremist, a growing number of 
Colombians want get-tough policies and see him as their savior. With 
campaigning already in high gear, his stances on negotiating peace with 
guerrillas have electrified Colombia's presidential race a full year before 
the first round of voting.

With his wire-rimmed glasses and dull gray business suits _ along with a 
resume that boasts graduate work at Harvard and Oxford the 48-year-old 
former governor hardly looks the part of an extremist.

But his upstart candidacy is stirring strong emotions and illustrating what 
some call a rightward shift in Colombia's historically centrist politics. 
Voters are frustrated that President Andres Pastrana's concessions to the 
rebels in return for talks have so far failed to stop the violence.

Uribe's own father was assassinated by guerrillas, and his rise comes as 
outlaw paramilitary groups expand a massacre campaign against suspected 
leftists in the countryside and congress debates "war legislation" to give 
the military broad powers to detain suspected terrorists.

Critics cast Uribe as an extremist who would plunge the South American 
country into wider bloodshed and chip away at its democratic traditions. 
The rebels have called him the candidate of war."

However, supporters see in Uribe an experienced and decisive leader perhaps 
the only man capable of bringing order to the chaos of an escalating 
37-year civil war.

"I'm going to vote for Alvaro Uribe and so are 99 percent of the people who 
come into my store," said Fabio Delgado, the owner of a convenience store 
in an upscale Bogota neighborhood. "This country needs discipline, it needs 
a strong hand."

The latest Gallup poll, taken in March, gave Uribe 25 percent of the vote, 
up from just 5 percent in August. The telephone poll of major cities had a 
3 percent error margin.

Should Uribe's support continue to grow, analysts say he might muscle his 
way into a second-round runoff even though he lacks the support of 
Colombia's two main parties.

The leading contenders in the race are Noemi Sanin of the Yes Colombia 
Party, and Horacio Serpa of the Liberal Party. The incumbent, Pastrana, 
cannot run for re-election because Colombian law limits presidents to a 
single four-year term.

Interviewed Friday during a campaign stop at a Bogota university, Uribe 
shrugged off his ultraconservative reputation while hitting the 
law-and-order themes that have earned him support.

Calling himself "a democrat with authority," Uribe told The Associated 
Press he would strengthen Colombia's U.S-backed military and also demand 
that guerrillas agree to a cease-fire and permit U.N. observers before he 
would continue the two-year-old peace process.

Uribe also backed growing U.S. military aid to fight drugs and criticized 
Pastrana's peace policies the strategy pollsters say is the key to his success.

He said Pastrana created a "paradise for criminals" when he ceded a 
Switzerland-sized southern territory at the outset of the talks to the 
country's largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of 
Colombia, or FARC.

Negotiations with the group have borne little fruit. The rebels are accused 
of using their sanctuary to train fighters, move arms and drugs and harbor 
kidnap victims.

Uribe also defended his controversial term as governor of western Antioquia 
State from 1995-1997. From the state house in Medellin, Uribe encouraged 
the formation of village and neighborhood watch groups some of whom, human 
rights groups charge, evolved into abusive right-wing paramilitary militias.

Uribe says the program was legal and succeeded at cutting crime. If 
elected, he said he would put 100,000 more police on the streets get 
citizens to "cooperate" more with the security forces.

Associates say Uribe's hard-line image has overshadowed more moderate 
positions on social issues picked up as a maverick member of the 
social-democratic Liberal Party.

Addressing a packed auditorium at the El Rosario University, the candidate 
wielded a laser pointer and spoke on topics from global warming to rural 
irrigation. But his success may ultimately hinge on whether there is more 
war or peace.

"If the peace process succeeds, Alvaro Uribe has little hope of becoming 
president," said Hernan de la Cuesta, Gallup's director in Colombia. "But 
if the process continues to falter, his chances look good."
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MAP posted-by: Beth