Banking magnate Luis Carlos Sarmiento, Colombia’s richest man, said on Thursday that he supports a third term for President Alvaro Uribe.
According to Bogota radio station Santa Fe, the banker said he will support Uribe if the President takes the decision to run for office again in 2010.
According to Sarmiento, Uribe’s ‘Democratic Security’ policy has helped change the country.
The country’s richest man says Colombia needs rigid measures to rid itself of left wing guerrillas who sow terror among the population.
Sarmiento admitted a re-election would de-institutionalize the country, but stresses that sixty years of violence has done more damage to the country’s institutions.
Grupo Aval, the country’s largest banking corporation, has seen profits rise throughout Uribe’s two administrations. Also during the global economic crisis that pushed Colombia into a recession and caused the bankruptcy of many international banks, daughter companies of Sarmiento’s empire continued to record increasing profits.