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Colombia lower house approves referendum on allowing third presidential term

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] The Colombian House of Representatives on Tuesday voted 85-5 to approve a bill to hold a referendum on whether President Alvaro Uribe can run for a third presidential term. There were 76 abstentions. To pass the bill, 83 votes were necessary, and one of the additional votes came from a representative who had vowed to abstain from voting because of a preliminary investigation into his actions in the 2004 voting process on the constitutional amendment that allowed Uribe to run for a second term. The bill will now have to be evaluated within the next 90 days by the Constitutional Court. Also Tuesday, the Supreme Court of Colombia issued a decision to continue investigating 86 members of Congress for alleged irregularities and receiving political favors during the 2004 voting process and for ties to paramilitary forces. On Wednesday, a leading conservative senator accused of receiving political favors in 2004 turned himself in after the Supreme Court issued an arrest warrant for him on Tuesday. The opposition and members of academia have decried the proposed referendum as a severe damage to democracy, and some Uribe supporters have also spoken against the measure. Uribe has not officially announced whether he would run for re-election if the referendum results were in favor of allowing a third term. The Colombian Senate in May approved a proposal to hold a referendum on amending the country's constitution to allow for a third presidential term. Uribe was elected to a second term in 2006 after a similar referendum, approved by Congress in December 2004 and the Constitutional Court in October 2005, lifted the original one-term limit. In June 2008, the Colombian Supreme Court ruled that a legal inquiry should be held into the election after it found that a legislator had been bribed to help push through the constitutional changes. In response, Uribe called for a referendum on the election.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on September 03, 2009 (boomark / email).