Colombia's Uribe tries to oust Santos with new presidential pick

[Judi Lynn]

Colombia's Uribe tries to oust Santos with new presidential pick
By Helen Murphy
BOGOTA Mon May 19, 2014 10:09am EDT

(Reuters) - Since stepping down as Colombia's president, Alvaro Uribe has spent much of the last four years fuming as his hand-picked successor turned against him and began peace talks with Marxist guerrillas.

Now Uribe is throwing his support behind right-wing economist Oscar Ivan Zuluaga and a late surge in opinion polls has raised his hopes of ousting President Juan Manuel Santos from power.

Zuluaga is the candidate of a new opposition movement that Uribe founded last year and he is staunchly against talks with rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Like his hardline mentor, Zuluaga accuses Santos of selling out Colombians by promising congressional seats instead of prison cells to rebel leaders if they end the 50-year-old conflict that has killed more than 200,000 people.

Opinion polls ahead of the first round of voting on Sunday show Zuluaga catching or even overtaking Santos, although a widening scandal over the alleged hacking of rebel negotiators' emails by Zuluaga's campaign could hurt him.

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/19/us-colombia-election-uribe-idUSBREA4I0D320140519?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&rpc=401

[Louisiana1976]

1. I hope Santos wins, because he's working towards peace with FARC.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Definitely! If the Uribe candidate wins Colombians can forget seeing peace again for 4 years.

The thought of the poor of the country living in squalor and terror and dying in agony is an aphrodisiac to twisted people like the right-wing oligarchs who've been pulling the strings in that feudal country all these years.