Newly re-elected Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos’ proposal to prohibit successive presidential re-elections is the best political initiative I have seen in South America in recent years. It should be turned into a regional example to redress the wave of authoritarianism that has swept the region in recent years.
A day after his Sunday reelection in a tight race — his main opponent, Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, had accused him of moving the country toward the kind of authoritarian leftist populism championed by late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez — Santos announced that he will send a bill to the Colombian Congress to ban presidential re-elections, and to extend the current four-year term to five- or six-year terms starting with the next president.
“We are going to introduce a series of reforms, including the elimination of re-election and the extension of presidential terms,” Santos said in his