Uribe's mandate

摘要

Four years ago, Alvaro Uribe won an unusually clear-cut victory in the presidential election, with 5.8m votes. On May 28th, he surpassed himself, winning a second term with 7.4m votes, or 62% of the total. True, hewing to Colombian tradition, only 45% of those eligible to vote turned out to do so. But by any standards, Mr Uribe, having pushed for a constitutional change to allow a sitting president to seek a second term, won an extraordinarily strong personal mandate.