UPDATE ON REELECTION: THINKING OF PLAN B

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BOGOTA 009321

SIPDIS

SOUTHCOM FOR POLAD

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/28/2015
TAGS: PGOV KJUS PINR CO
SUBJECT: UPDATE ON REELECTION: THINKING OF PLAN B

REF: A. BOGOTA 8241

B. 04 BOGOTA 12860

Classified By: Ambassador William B. Wood
Reasons: 1.4 (b,d)

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Summary
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1. (C) President Uribe and his team are considering
contingency plans in the event the Constitutional Court
strikes down reelection. The plans that are receiving most
attention include a public referendum that would seek to
change the Constitution, and the casting of a separate ballot
during March 2006 Congressional elections that would
purportedly authorize Uribe to run in May. The option of
casting "null" ballots during the May presidential contest,
and thereby causing another election with different
candidates, would not enable Uribe to run again and would be
a symbolic protest. Similarly, a "national interest" ballot
initiative appears to lack the legal
weight to proceed. End Summary.

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Contingency Planning
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2. (SBU) Uribe supporters are considering two principal
courses of action in the event the Court were to strike down
reelection:

-- a national referendum (the most commonly-mentioned
option); and

-- a separate ballot initiative

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National Referendum
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3. (SBU) A national referendum on reelection would need to
take place before the Presidential election on May 28. The
Constitution explicitly allows for Constitutional reform via
referendum (the other two vehicles are via legislation in
Congress or via Constitutional Convention). In rough terms,
a referendum can be convened by the signatures of five
percent of voting-age adults (based on the census). In
addition to formal steps such as review of signatures, the
referendum -- in particular the text of the issue to be
decided -- would need to pass both houses of Congress, which
would not likely be a hurdle. A subsequent required step
would be approval of the text by the Constitutional Court, a
potentially more complicated step that could be drawn out by
one or more magistrates. Only after that could Uribe begin
to campaign as a candidate, in the teeth of other party
candidates, most of whom would reject the referendum. The
timeline for completing all the required steps would be
disruptive and tight, but might be manageable given popular
support for Uribe's reelection.

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Separate Ballot Initiative
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4. (SBU) President Uribe could issue a decree in the days
before March 12 Congressional elections mandating that
electoral authorities count separate ad hoc ballots that
citizens could deposit along with their Congressional votes.
The ad hoc ballot, which would be distributed at polling
places by Uribe supporters, would simply query the
individual's support for the option of reelection. Provided
that 50 percent of the total nationwide Congressional vote
supported the reelection option, the measure would pass, and
in theory Uribe could be on the May 28 ballot. The above
method was used in the 1990 Congressional election to convene
the Convention that drafted the 1991 Constitution. While the
high courts subsequently ruled that the actual Presidential
decree was unconstitutional, the court ruling nevertheless
allowed the "will of the people" (the convening of the
Convention) to prevail. We would expect a complicated legal
battle in this case.

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"Null Vote" Option
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5. (SBU) The null vote option would not directly assist
Uribe, but would be a symbolic statement of public protest.
Electoral laws mandate that in the event blank ballots (null
votes) attain a majority, the vote is annulled and a new
election is required. No existing candidate would be allowed
to participate in the new election. We see no likelihood
that null votes would be a majority, nor would a null vote
majority, in itself, enable Uribe to run again.

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National Interest Initiative
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6. (SBU) While several supporters have pushed the
national interest initiative, our estimation is it would
not pass legal muster. Article 104 of the Constitution
allows for a ballot initiative to decide issues of national
interest. Our legal contacts concur, however, that the
Constitution would continue to prohibit reelection, as the
national interest initiative would not supplant the highest
law of the land.


WOOD