Pro-Uribe Senator Juan Carlos Velez admits that he is open to former President Alvaro Uribe’s return to power for an unprecedented third term and preliminary proposals are already being analyzed, according to an interview in El Espectador Sunday.
“President Uribe is very young and still has plenty of energy to continue making war. He’s only 58 years old and it is not strange to soon open the possiblity that he returns to the presidency,” he said.
The Partido de la U. politician added that the project to allow Uribe to seek a third term “is starting” already.
“Some have made the proposal, we are listening to it and analyzing it. It is not something unreasonable. Obviously it would not be for the next elections in 2014. But if in the future the country calls for President Uribe, because it considers it necessary that he returns, then we will look at that possibility.”
The senator stated that he would “not do anything without the consent of ex-President Uribe” but that if he were to give the go-ahead then “I see no problem in driving a National Consituent Assembly.”
A third term would be unprecedented since former President Uribe already altered the consitution during his first term between 2002 and 2006, in order to be permitted to run for re-election, ultimately successfully, and remain president until 2010.