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Judi Lynn

(160,211 posts)
Thu Sep 25, 2014, 01:17 PM Sep 2014

Colombia’s conservative opposition accidentally votes against own platform

Colombia’s conservative opposition accidentally votes against own platform
Sep 24, 2014 posted by Nicolas Bedoya

Whether an honest mistake or a show of incompetence, Colombia’s right-wing Democratic Center party senators on Tuesday surprisingly voted in favor of a political reform they have vehemently opposed over the past few weeks.

After an eight hour long debate in the Senate’s first commission, Democratic Center senator Paloma Valencia proposed an amendment to the political reform legislation passing through congress, to allow the a former president to run for president again after waiting four years.

Valencia’s proposal could be taken as an attempt to get Democratic Center party leader and former President Alvaro Uribe back into Colombia’s presidential palace.

The Democratic Center bench then requested that the bill be submitted to vote. When the time to vote on the initial proposal to eliminate reelection came, the “Uribistas” thought they were voting for their own amendment to allow a former president to run for president again, according to Semana magazine.

Senators Paloma Valencia, Jose Obdulio Gaviria, Jaime Amin, and Alfredo Rangel ended up voting for the elimination of the reelection along with their opponents in the governing coalition let by Santos’s U party. The final vote in the commission was 13 senators in favor and three against.

More:
http://colombiareports.co/colombia-opposition-senators-vote-platform/

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