MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Colombia’s former Defense minister consolidates as sucesor of Uribe

Juan Manuel Santos is the front runner and with the Conservatives can ensure a continuation of Uribe’s policies

Colombian presidential candidate Juan Manuel Santos’s La U party is leading the vote count of congressional elections held Sunday, consolidating his position as frontrunner to succeed Alvaro Uribe.

With over 93% of votes counted, La U had won 24% of the ballot, Caracol Radio reported, citing the National Registry. The party has pledged to maintain Uribe’s “democratic security” and economic policies if former defense minister Santos wins the May 30 presidential election.

The Conservative Party captured 22% in the Senate race. The opposition Liberal Party, which is running former Senator Rafael Pardo on its presidential ticket, won 16.5%. Parties that have backed Uribe during the past eight years had won 62.9% of votes. Colombians are choosing all 102 senators and 166 representatives in the elections. This means that the ruling coalition of president Uribe has won at least 50 of the 102 seats in the Senate.

The Alternative Democratic Pole party whose Senator Gustavo Petro has positioned himself as the anti-Uribe choice with pledges to purge “mafias” from the state, garnered 7%.

Colombian officials said the vote went off with little violence, after rebels had threatened to disrupt the election. A national tally for the lower house was not available. However abstention was very high, in the range of 57% of those registered to vote.

Parties that have backed Uribe during the past eight years had won 62.9% of votes. Colombians are choosing all 102 senators and 166 representatives in the elections.

Uribe retained a more than 60% approval rating throughout his eight years in office by pushing back cocaine- funded Marxist-oriented guerrillas and attracting record foreign investment. The US ally, the recipient of over 600 million USD in annual Washington aid, is barred from seeking a third term in elections scheduled for May 30.

The congressional race had been overshadowed by the possibility that Uribe may seek to run for a third term. But uncertainty was lifted February 26 when the Constitutional Court blocked a referendum on the issue, forcing lawmakers and presidential candidates to scramble and jumpstart their campaigns.

Sergio Fajardo, a former mayor of Medellin, may now be eligible to participate in May after his Citizens’ Movement for Colombia won 1.5%, which would give it the seat required for his presidential bid.

Colombia’s GDP has more than doubled during Uribe’s time in office to 242 billion USD, while the benchmark IGBC stock index has risen more than nine-fold and the peso strengthened more than 40%.

Uribe has based his presidency on attracting foreign investment and the so-called “democratic security” policy, which aims to destroy the drug trade and reduce violence through an increased military presence.

Polls show Santos is likely to reach a second round of voting on June 20 if no candidate gets more than 50% of the ballots cast in the first round. Santos has said he would seek to form a coalition with the Conservative Party and would consider joining forces with Vargas Lleras, who was previously allied with Uribe, should he drop out of the race for president.

Santos was favored by 23% of those surveyed by Ipsos Napoleon Franco on February 27. Petro had 11% support and Fajardo had 9% backing, according to the nationwide poll of 1,000 people which had an error margin of 3.1 percentage points.

The winner of the presidential vote is unlikely to depart from Uribe’s policies that are credited with bringing in as much as 50 billion USD in foreign investment since 2002 and cutting the murder rate by 95%, according to Patrick Esteruelas, a Latin America risk adviser to hedge funds at the Eurasia Group in New York.