When was uribe elected

The aim was to boost statistics and gain promotions for the soldiers involved. No judge, no jury, just a bullet in the back of the head," said Maria Solano, a seamstress in one of Bogota's southern slums. Foreign relations have not been a strong suit for President Uribe.

While he has maintained the close relations with Washington that he inherited from President Andres Pastrana, he has managed to isolate Colombia from many of its neighbours.

Venezuela and Ecuador do not have formal diplomatic relations with Colombia. Nicaragua is also hostile and to a lesser degree so are Bolivia and Argentina. Much of this bad blood dates back to , when Colombian planes bombed a Farc camp inside Ecuador, killing 27 people, among them an Ecuadorean citizen. The result, predictably, was Mr Chavez once again severing diplomatic relations. This bad blood with neighbours has also undermined an otherwise strong economic performance.

By opening up parts of the country previously dominated by the guerrillas he has created an oil and mining boom, attracting record levels of foreign investment. However, both Venezuela and Ecuador placed restrictions on the import of Colombian goods, so damaging the economy, particularly along the border region. Asked what were some of the highs and lows of his presidency Mr Uribe chose events that involved his sworn enemies, the Farc.

This referred to a military operation in July when the army tricked the Farc into handing over 15 hostages they held, among them the former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt. One of the low points was when it was discovered that the Farc had killed 11 local politicians kidnapped in the city of Cali, in Valle del Cauca province. Pain for their murder, rage for the lies of the terrorists," he said. Mr Uribe hands over to his successor a vastly different country to the one he inherited.

Former defence minister Juan Manuel Santos has a great deal for which to be grateful to his former boss. Peace talks between the rebels and Colombia's governing coalition , spearheaded by current President Juan Manuel Santos, have dominated the country's political life since they started in Santos hopes to conclude them soon, with a peace agreement.

With more than 95 percent of the votes counted, Santos retains the majority in the two-chamber Congress, but his margin has shrunk. Uribe's new Centro Democratico opposition party gained an estimated 20 seats in the seat Senate.

Polls closed at 4 p. Sunday local time UTC. Ahead of the vote, it was predicted that President Juan Manuel Santos, expected to announce his bid for re-election this week, would retain control of the two-chamber Congress, an endorsement of his government's peace talks strategy. Santos remains the favorite to win the presidential election.

Former President Alvaro Uribe , a conservative still popular for his fight against FARC while in power from to , campaigned on slogan "No to impunity. About 32 million Colombians were eligible to vote for representatives to fill lower house seats and in the Senate, though congressional elections have a particularly high abstention rate.

Ahead of the election, National Ombudsman Jorge Armando Otalora said that groups such as FARC had exercised "pressure and intimidation" on voters to keep them from the polls in at least one-fifth of the country. Functional Functional. Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.

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