Colombian Conservatives and Alvaro Uribe in talks
Colombian Conservatives´ new leader Omar Yepes met this week former president Alvaro Uribe in Bogotá to discuss possible alliances ahead of the congressional and presidential elections in 2014.
Yepes has gone on record stating the Conservatives´intention to run their own candidate for the presidency; competing against Juan Manuel Santos´ likely re-election campaign, and a possible candidate for Uribe´s Democratic Centre movement.
Uribe is yet to decide whether to head up a list of candidates for the senate (he is constitutionally prohibited from running again for the presidency), but should he do so, analysts expect him to form a powerful grouping in the upper house.
Many within the Conservative Party see themselves as natural allies of Uribe and expect the party to join forces with this new Uribista intake next year.
There is also a possibility that should the presidential election go to two rounds (if no candidate has over 50% of the vote in the first round of voting, a second ballot is called between the two with the highest number of votes), the Conservatives and the Uribistas will unite against Santos.
Yepes met Uribe alongside former Antioquia Governor, Luis Alfredo Ramos who many tip as a possible candidate for the blues. Right-winger José Félix Lafaurie seen as a candidate either for Uribismo or for the Conservatives was also present.
Martha Lucía Ramírez, a minister in Uribe´s government and a natural Conservative has long spoken of a unification between her party and those of the Democratic Centre.
Much is in flux as alliances and deals are done just months before the campaigns officially begin in November. The Conservatives remain nominally within President Santos´National Unity coalition government, but there is little disguising their nonconformity with the direction Santos is taking the country.
Yepes takes over the Conservatives at a time of transition for the party. It must quickly define its route, its candidate and its platform for the elections.