MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uribe with 80% popularity fights for US Congress support

Colombian president Alvaro Uribe has an 80% support, the highest since taking office back in 2002, according to the latest public opinion polls released this week. The previous poll in November showed Uribe with a 74% support and 14% negative response.

The disclosure of the latest polls comes at a crucial moment for President Uribe who is fighting for support from the US Congress for approval of a free trade agreement. The Ivamer Gallup poll was taken between January 17 and 19 with a thousand phone interviews, in Colombia's four main cities: Bogota, Medellin, Cali and Barranquilla. President Uribe next Augut will be half way through his second four year mandate. He was reelected with 62.2% of valid votes. Interviews also included questions about President Hugo Chavez from neighboring Venezuela but his public standing in Colombia is almost opposite to that of Uribe. The Venezuelan president only has a 10% favorable image while his negative image has ballooned to 76%. Similarly Colombian opposition Senator Pieda Cordoba who played a leading role in the liberation of two hostages held by the cocaine funded Colombian guerrilla group FARC, has a positive image of 22% and 74% negative. President Uribe this Thursday receives the visit of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who is pledging for support from Democrat Congress members for approval of a free trade agreement with Colombia. Ms Rice is visiting Colombia with a delegation of ten Democrats from the Lower House. Democrats are blocking the President Bush administration free trade initiative which is opposed by the influential Congressman Eliot Engel chairman of the Latinamerican Subcommittee. "I think it will be a great opportunity for the State Secretary and members of Congress to assess directly on the field the impact of President Uribe's democratic security policies in a city as Medellin", said Tom Shannon Under Secretary for Hemispheric Affairs in Washington. Democras who control both houses in Congress are conditioning the ratification of the free trade agreement with Colombia to an end to killings of "trade union leaders" and clarification of the "parapolitical scandal" of alleged links between members of the Uribe administration and extreme right para military groups. Shannon who is also in the delegation said Congress members and Ms Rice would be meeting with union leaders who favor and reject the free trade agreement. The Bush administration has been strongly lobbying Congress for the trade agreement with Colombia, insisting on the democratic and pacifying successes of the President Uribe government in the guerrilla torn country. In early December Bush said that "Uribe was a close ally of the US" and warned Democrats that denying support for the trade agreement with Colombia "would be an insult to a good and reliable friend".