Uribe responds to the judge who denied the preclusion of the case against him 3:23
(CNN Spanish) --
Uribismo is the political current created by Álvaro Uribe Vélez that in the last 20 years has been so present in the country that Uribe, former president and former senator, is considered by many to be one of the most important political figures in Colombia. in that period.
But, after years of political influence, and after four years of the presidency of Uribista Iván Duque —who left a country sunk in violence and with a social crisis accentuated by the pandemic— Uribismo is in decline, according to some experts.
Uribismo "places special emphasis on the need to provide security for all citizens," Rafael Nieto Loaiza, a political analyst in Bogotá and who for the 2018 elections was a presidential candidate for the Democratic Center, former President Uribe's party, told CNN.
Uribe's political group argues that based on this security, everyone's rights and freedoms can be developed: entrepreneurship, job creation, the fight against poverty, among others, explains Nieto Loaiza.
According to the analyst, security becomes a "dynamizer" of the economy and is "fundamental" for investor confidence.
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Among the principles of Uribismo are the so-called democratic security, the creation of confidence for the investment of national and international private capital, social cohesion (understood as "overcoming poverty"), an austere State and popular dialogue.
As loved as hated: former president Álvaro Uribe is a figure that divides Colombians
This is how Uribism was consolidated in Colombia
BOGOTA, COLOMBIA: Newly elected Colombian President Álvaro Uribe Vélez and his Vice President Francisco Santos greet supporters in Bogotá in March 2002. (Credit: LUIS ACOSTA/AFP/Getty Images)
At the end of the 1990s and beginning of the new century, Colombia was a country plunged into despair due to the extremely high levels of violence by armed groups and governments with whom criminal acts were constant.
"His premise was security," Mauricio Jaramillo Jassir, a professor of international relations at the Externado University in Bogotá, told CNN.
"Recover the authority of the State lost especially in the Government of Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002), in which he had to face a series of guerrilla takeovers."
"It was the moment when the state was almost on its knees at the mercy of a supremely powerful guerrilla," Jaramillo Jassir said.
So the presidential campaign at the beginning of the century arrived and a little-known candidate at that time, who started very low in the polls, began to climb public opinion with a strong-arm speech against the FARC.
Álvaro Uribe Vélez, who had previously served as director of Civil Aeronautics, mayor of Medellín and governor of Antioquia, now sought to govern the country.
A strong hand was needed, "a man with pants," said Revista Semana, then one of the most important media outlets in the country, in a 2001 report called "The Uribe Phenomenon."
"Colombia had never been as close to the abyss as it feels today," said the Semana report in which the Pastrana government was attributed a "lack of leadership, with rampant insecurity, with kidnappings triggered and with the escalation of the war coming to the cities".
Uribe came to power in 2002 with an unprecedented first-round victory and broad support among political sectors and the civilian population.
Former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe could be the first former president to face trial in this country
The achievements of Uribe
(Credit: Guillermo Legaria/Getty Images)
"Former President Uribe arrived at a time when the country was going through a complex situation and he changed things," analyst Ariel Ávila, an expert on armed conflict at the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation, PARES, previously told CNN en Español.
During his presidency, Uribe led a strong military offensive against the FARC that changed the course of the conflict.
His “iron fist” policy and democratic security made terrorist acts in his government go from 1,645 in 2002 to 709 in 2005;
even kidnapping figures dropped considerably, from more than 3,500 in 2000 to about 282 at the end of his term.
In 2002, the Colombian government launched the "Plan Choque", with which the military and police forces were reinforced and the fight against kidnapping was reinforced, reward payment programs were implemented and support for operations was promoted. of the Public Force by prosecutors and attorneys, says a 2010 Defense Ministry report.
"President Uribe was the man who restored hope to many Colombians. For many Colombians, President Uribe is synonymous with trust in institutions," Senator Paloma Valencia said in 2019 regarding the hearing before the Supreme Court of Justice .
And in that context, Uribe came to the presidency with approval levels above 70%, a trend that lasted almost a decade, even after his two presidential terms ended.
"In that first stage, what he proposed was to recover the State and relaunch the economy based on security. And that was like a first stage in which there was more talk of democratic security, of Uribe," said Jaramillo Jassir.
But, adds that analyst, "the idea that was sold is that (former presidents César) Gaviria, (Ernesto) Samper, (Andrés) Pastrana, handed over a failed State, a State that did not work and it was Uribe who rescued it."
After promoting a controversial amendment to the Constitution in 2005 to approve re-election, in 2006 he began his second term —also with victory in the first round— which ended in August 2010. Such was his political influence in the country that Uribe was the first president in the modern history of Colombia to be re-elected for two consecutive terms.
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Uribe, the "great elector"
"Uribe was the great voter in Colombia until 2018," said Nieto Loaiza.
And he is right: not only did he win two presidential elections, but his successor, his Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos, was elected under the banner of democratic security in 2010.
(Santos would take a different path from the policy with which he was elected and negotiated peace with the FARC guerrillas, which was his axis of re-election in 2014. Recently, former President Juan Manuel Santos said in a CNN interview that Uribe " He is a much better politician" than him: "He is a political animal," he said in an interview with Camilo Egaña).
Uribismo won the first round of the 2014 elections with Óscar Iván Zuluaga (whom Santos defeated in the second round) and in 2016 elected Iván Duque as the presidential candidate of the Democratic Center, and he was also elected president of Colombia in 2018.
As for Congress, it also had great influence: in 2005 native politicians who supported the Uribe government got together to create the Partido de la U, led at that time by Juan Manuel Santos.
And in 2013, with Santos in power, negotiating peace with the FARC and estranged from his predecessor, Uribe founded his own party: the Democratic Center, which in its first vote in 2014 elected 20 of 102 senators and 19 representatives to the Chamber of 166. The banner of this new movement was the opposition to the Santos Government, based on the rejection of the agreements with the guerrillas, and with the proposal to return to a management of the so-called democratic security.
Also with the influence of Uribe and the Democratic Center, in 2016 in the plebiscite for peace the option of no won, not to endorse the peace agreements with the FARC, which would later have some modifications and would finally be signed later that year.
How did Colombia go from reporting more than 3,000 kidnappings a year to less than 200 in 20 years?
The decline of Uribe
Former President Álvaro Uribe during the Concordia Lexington Summit on April 7, 2022. (Credit: Jon Cherry/Getty Images for Concordia Summit)
Mauricio Jaramillo Jassir, from the Externado University, points out two stages of uribismo: one that was when Uribe governed Colombia, in which "democratic security is spoken of more than uribismo", and another, he says, when Uribe left the government and began to be leader of the opposition, trying to retake control of the country.
"In the second stage, there is talk of post-Uribe Colombia, which experiences a kind of nostalgia and a very large politicization around the legacy of Álvaro Uribe Vélez," said Jaramillo Jassir.
In that post-Uribe Colombia, says the expert, the country has known a series of events that have taken away the former president's credibility.
There are the famous scandals of the 'chuzadas' to opponents during his government;
several of his close collaborators of that mandate who have been imprisoned;
a case of witness tampering for which he is currently being prosecuted in Justice (he could be the first ex-president to face trial in the country), and one of the most infamous cases in the history of Colombia: the false positives, with the that the Army murdered 6,402 civilians to pass them off as guerrillas killed in combat.
Uribe, who has not been charged or formally linked to the investigations for false positives, has denied that he had ordered the murders and assured that during his government he confronted and sanctioned "all human rights violations."
Former Colombian military admit to killing civilians 4:58
"Uribe's position today is a bit of this idea that Uribe is the victim of a smear campaign, that he is being judged by courts that are left-wing progressives, manipulated by the (FARC) guerrillas," says the analyst.
And given this, there is a counter-Uribe current which, according to the expert, are those who "consider that in many years excesses were committed, violations of international humanitarian law, extrajudicial executions, intimidation of the press, the courts, etc."
"So we have these two versions: a historical one in the eight years of Uribe and a nostalgic one that has Colombia here in a very great state of polarization," said Jaramillo Jassir.
Uribe, whose highest level of favorability in the polls was reached in 2009 with Operation Jaque (in which the Army freed 15 hostages, including the politician Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans) reaching 85%, started from the beginning his opposition to the Santos government.
He now has one of the highest unfavorable rates, even reaching 73% negative image.
Uribe's unfavorability has been accentuated since the beginning of Iván Duque's government in August 2018, according to an Invamer survey that measures history since 1996.
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The political "wear" of Uribe
The election of Duque as president and the four years of his government, which have been the target of criticism from his own party, have this political force in decline.
"That is part of the resentment of the Uribista base even with President Urbe," says Nieto Loaiza.
"The Uribe base charges President Uribe what they call his mistake for having supported Santos at the time and Duque later," he added.
Nieto says that Uribe has "worn out" in front of his base due to the efforts of Santos and Duque: "That largely explains the erosion of President Uribe's popularity"
And with a high degree of unfavorability, former President Álvaro Uribe himself has recognized that his support for any candidate in the 2022 presidential elections could subtract instead of add.
"Any candidate I approach, right there they say 'Uribista' and put a stigma on him," Uribe said in mid-April.
"I was even sorry that Óscar Iván [Zuluaga] went out with me on walks and I told him so.
"That's why I want to do a task now applying the principle here: He who doesn't get in the way does a lot," Uribe told reporters.
After the last elections to Congress, which were a kind of referendum for Duque and for Uribismo itself, this political force was decimated and its main opponents, the Historical Pact, a meeting of left-wing political forces, won the majority of seats in the Congress in 2022.
The most recent polls show left-wing leader Gustavo Petro —who has been Uribe's strongest opponent for years— as the possible winner of the presidential election, closing perhaps 20 years of the Uribe era in Colombia.
Álvaro Uribe Vélez Iván Duque