The rift within coalition party Cambio Radical (Radical Change) widens
as its senators insist on supporting the 2010 re-election of President
Alvaro Uribe. Party leader German Vargas Lleras is supported by the
House faction to only support a 2014 re-election.
Vargas Lleras met with the two factions Monday to discuss the party’s policy towards the re-election of Uribe and the ambition of the Cambio Radical leader to run for the 2010 Presidency himself.
Vargas Lleras is confronted by a fiercely Uribista faction in the senate that insists on supporting the constitutional change needed for the current President to run again in 2010, probably ruining all possibility for Vargas Lleras to make a chance.
The Radical Change frontman, who has been preparing his candidacy for more than half a year already, does have support in the party’s Representatives to the House, who only want to give Uribe the chance to run for a third term in 2014.
Former Cambio Radical senator Roy Barreras, one of the fiercest of Uribe’s supporters in the party and sacked for his subversive attitude, Tuesday joined Partido de la U, the party that initiated the process to have Uribe re-elected in 2010.
Barrera told the press that more Cambio Radical congressmen consider leaving the party for Partido de la U.
Congress is set to continue debating the re-election of Uribe on Wednesday.