Colombia´s President Alvaro Uribe gestures during a health assembly in Barranquilla Feb 26, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Jairo Castilla
BOGOTA (Reuters) - A justice shut off Colombian President Alvaro Uribe on Friday from using for re-election, creation his former invulnerability apportion the the one preferred to attain the Washington fan in a May presidential election.
The inherent justice statute noted the begin of a difficult competition to reinstate Uribe, who during his eight years in energy became the country"s majority renouned boss for his U.S.-backed fight on revolutionary rebels and heroin traffickers.
Juan Manuel Santos, a former Cabinet apportion closely compared with Uribe"s security success opposite Latin America"s oldest insurgency, leads in perspective polls. After the ruling, he reliable his goal to run for the presidency.
With Colombians watchful for word on their domestic future, the justice voted 7-2 to reject a referendum on Uribe"s re-election bid. It cited irregularities trimming from the referendum"s financing to the hilly thoroughfare by Congress.
"I accept and I apply oneself the preference of the inherent court," Uribe pronounced after the ruling. "One mental condition inspires me: that the republic betters the path, but does not shift it."
Under the regressive leader, the FARC or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, has been weakened, and unfamiliar investment has flowed usually in to Colombia, an Andean republic once a scapegoat for a unsuccessful state mired in drug violence.
Many Colombians, even his foes, praised Uribe, the 57-year-old son of rich landowners, as a man who managed to drive the republic onto the right track. But the re-election subject dominated the domestic bulletin for some-more than a year as Uribe remained shy on either he would run.
Any claimant to attain Uribe is doubtful to shift far from his security policies, nonetheless majority of the aspirants contend they will find to concentration some-more on amicable growth in the tip coffee exporter and Latin America"s No. 4 oil producer.
"Uribe"s sidelining from the presidential competition is unquestionably certain in the view, opening the doorway to a low dais of possibilities who are broadly in preference of process continuity," pronounced researcher Patrick Esteruelas at Eurasia Group.
DEALING WITH CHAVEZ
Uribe, whose father was killed by FARC rebels in a botched kidnapping, won the presidency in 2002 earnest to pound the guerrillas. Violence, abduction and bombings have eased and vital cities are right away majority safer than eight years ago.
Colombia has became Washington"s staunchest fan in the region, where revolutionary leaders in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador evangelise anti-U.S. rhetoric. Last year, he sealed a understanding permitting U.S. infantry some-more entrance to Colombian bases.
The new boss will have to conduct ethereal family with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has clashed with Uribe regularly over U.S. infantry team-work he sees as a hazard to his OPEC nation.
Uribe"s inheritor contingency additionally plunge into mountainous unemployment, a recuperating economy and a miss of state participation in farming areas whilst consolidating security gains outward vital cities.
FARC rebels are still fighting in remote areas, ambushing infantry and laying makeshift land mines. New company gangs intent in drug bootlegging are an augmenting be concerned and the republic stays the world"s No. 1 exporter of cocaine.
Santos, who additionally served as financial apportion and programmed a little of Uribe"s vital successes opposite the FARC, led with eighteen percent await in a new check discounting Uribe.
"I wish to reaffirm that I make an effort to be a claimant for the presidency," Santos pronounced in a statement. "What we need to do right away is work to safeguard his (Uribe"s) bequest of security and swell is not lost."
Sergio Fajardo, an eccentric praised for his opening as Medellin major, perceived twelve percent, whilst an additional former invulnerability minister, Noemi Sanin, took eleven percent in the poll.
The domestic passing from one to another could dishearten the internal peso banking and benchmark TES debt markets in the short term, but majority analysts see long-term smoothness in policy.
Colombians will opinion subsequent month in legislative elections expected to be a benchmark of await for Uribe"s domestic coalition. But the elections could risk splintering the fondness if parties quarrel over presidential candidates.
Already Uribe"s U Party and the Conservative Party -- dual heavyweights in the president"s bloc -- have clashed over either they should benefaction a one candidate.
Uribe was re-elected once prior to in 2006 after his supporters pushed by a inherent legislative addition to lift restrictions on incumbents using for a second term.
But the move to shift the law again for Uribe fueled worries over the hazard to Colombia"s democracy. His second tenure was injured by scandals over rights abuses by infantry and bootleg wiretapping of his opponents by the state view agency.
His recognition has hovered on top of 60 percent during his scarcely eight years in office. But the government"s doing of an renovate of the health use this month appeared to cost him politically after the measures triggered protests.
"It was time to put a stop to Uribe," pronounced car tools salesman Roberto Villegas. "He began to think he was a god."
(Additional stating by Javier Mozzo and Nelson Bocanegra, Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Peter Cooney)
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