Presidente Uribe

I met up with a couchsurfer from Cartagena named Rosi who is also visiting Bogotá for coffee and a little Spanish practice and, surprise surprise, she's also against Uribe. It's got to be an age thing, all the old people love him and all the young people hate him. According to her, he's trying to privatize all the public universities (including hers) saying there isn't enough funding for them. Of course whenever someone says there isn't enough funding for something, what they mean is that they'd rather fund something else, but I'm not so sure he's as bad as she thinks. She also claimed the country didn't get safer during his administration which is definitely not true.

Alvaro Uribe Vélez was born in 1952 to a wealthy paisa rancher, got a law degree, and started working in government. He was the Mayor of Medellín, then a Senator, then a Governor, then President. He's one of the best liked politians in Latin American history, with consistent approval ratings of above 70%, probably due to the increase in security. He was so popular that he was able to get a constitutional amendment allowing him a second term. It passed not long after the AUC, a terrorist paramilitary organization, was disbanded and sent to rehabilitation programs.

However Uribe's also been involved in several scandals. He's been accused of involvement with narcotrafficking several times, including by Pablo Escobar's former lover Virginia Vallejo and by a declassified American intelligence reports. More recently, links were reported between his whole family and paramilitary groups; he was even accused of helping orchestrate a massacre and it's been dubbed the parapolitics scandal. Furthermore, congresswoman Yidis Medina stepped forward just a few months ago accusing him of bribing her to vote for the amendment allowing his re-election. On the whole though I haven't yet seen any real proof so far.