Authoritarian Democracy on the March

Columbia's Uribe gains approval to change the constitution so that he can run for a second term with US approval. The "democratization" of the region in the last 20 years has seen two general trends. Left/nationalist and liberal parties that have come to power with lofty goals only to be stymied by the constraints of international lending institutions. They then go along with the prescriptions of said institutions and are punished in the polls because they are seen as hypocrites and sellouts. The other route has been right wing coalitions who have championed law and order and a full embrace of the new neo-liberal order. Uribe is the current poster boy for the latter. Washington regularly allies with such authoritarians who then radically violate human rights, shift national revenues and priorities to local and international elites away from the poor and then crack down on the subsequent social explosion. Columbia is an extreme example but look to the Uribe experience to mirror the Fujimori disaster.