Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said in an interview with W Radio Friday that he has “absolute respect” for presidential candidate Antanas Mockus and denied he referred to the Green Party leader as a “disabled horse.”
“I am a deliberating [person] and I defend my ideas but I am respectful of people and humanity,” Uribe said, rejecting the suggestion that he is campaigning for Partido de la U candidate Juan Manuel Santos, but rather he all he has done “is defend the thesis of my government.”
During the interview Uribe admitted he had made a mistake in not closing down security agency DAS and thereby avoiding the government organization’s wire tapping scandal.
“What I should have done when I arrived [in office] was close that organism,” he said.
Uribe has been warned in the past by independent electoral observers not to interfere in the elections, after he voiced criticisms of Mockus.
In Colombia’s first round presidential election held on May 30, Santos came in first with 46.57% of the vote, followed by Mockus with 21.47%. Given that no one candidate won the majority vote required to win the election outright, Santos and Mockus will face-off in a second round election on June 20.
The latest voter poll indicates that Santos will win the second round run-off with with 65%, while Mockus will win 28% of the votes.