48 percent of the Colombians would support President Uribe if he would decide to send Congress home, a recent survey shows.
The survey, held by the los Andes University, the Vanderbilt University and USAID in all Latin America, does not make Colombian Congress the least loved. An even higher number of Ecuadoreans wouldn’t mind their Congressmen to be without work.
According to professor Juan Carlos Rodríguez, who held the survey, one of the most worrisome results of the survey is that Colombians believe the President should be able to limit the power of opposition parties and the President should ignore the Supreme and Constitutional Court.
“It is dangerous that a President with a high approval rating could take this kind of measures without having an opposition to prevent them,” the professor told newspaper El Espectador.
According to the same survey, Colombians are most confident in the President, the Church and the media. Least popular are Congress, political parties, minority groups and labor unions.
Colombians of all Latin Americans are most in favor of prohibiting public protests, opposition gatherings, television program, books and even the closing of television stations if they criticize the President or Government.
Rodríguez isn’t afraid Colombia is on its way to become a dictatorship, but does see that Colombians increasingly are willing to support a strongman. In this vein Colombians would be willing to “sacrifice some democratic rights to support a strong government that is able to take radical decisions.”