Now that Álvaro Uribe’s (presumed)¹ dream of a third term are officially dead, former Defense Minister² Juan Manuel Santos is going to jump into the electoral fray.  This is a wholly expected outcome.

El Tiempo reports:  Santos aspira a ser el candidato presidencial de la coalición uribista y a ganar en primera vuelta [Santos Aspires to be Presidential Candidate of the Uribe Coalition and to Win in the First Round].

Santos is hoping for a coalition of la U,³ portions of the Conservatives,⁴ portions of Radical Change,⁵ and other uribista parties.

It is unclear to me if he will run as the official candidate of la U or as an independent affiliation with la U and other parties (which was the Uribe way).  The proof will be in how he inscribes he candidacy and how it appears on the ballot.

At the moment, I would predict that Santos will win in May, but that he will have to take it to the second round, but it is early-ish in the campaign cycle, since not all the candidates have been selected.⁶  One very interesting issue will be to see if all of the current candidates remain in the race (which, actually, I expect them to do).  It seems that while an Uribe candidacy might have led to a winnowing of the field, the fact that the seat is now open will encourage the various parties to keep their candidates in the field.

1. He was always quite cagey in terms of making an official pronouncement as to his actual desires on the matter. [↩]
2. Amongst other things—he has an impressive resume. [↩]
3. The Partido Social de Unidad Nacional [↩]
4. Although at the moment they are going to nominate a candidate on the 14th of March. [↩]
5. Although CR has a candidate already. [↩]
6. Not exactly the protracted US campaign calendar, now is it? [↩]

Comments are closed.