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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| After eight years, Uribe a fighter until the end |
| 2010-02-28 |
| When first elected in 2002, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe vowed he would bring the country's Marxist rebels to their knees and draw investors back to a country dismissed as a failing state mired in violence. After nearly eight years in office, the bespectacled lawyer learned on Friday that efforts to allow him to serve a third term had failed and he must step aside. Colombia's Constitutional Court struck down an attempt by Uribe's allies to amend the law and let the president remain in office for four more years. The ruling dashed hopes that the the man many Colombians credit for pulling the country back from the brink could serve again. While foreign investment is flooding into mining and oil and the rebels are at their weakest in decades, the five-decade-long conflict lingers. Though he looked more like a school teacher than a tough, hands-on leader, Uribe's no-nonsense style in the middle of conflict with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, made him the most popular Colombian president in memory. His approval rating has never fallen below 60 percent even as scandals hit his government. "You solve one problem and up come a thousand more and that's why the government can never sleep," Uribe told a crowd gathered on red chairs at a recent town hall meeting. |
| Posted by:Fred |