Hopefully one of the last remaining vestiges of Washington's deep tentacles w/in South America, but a sad case that is just getting worse....

Elections, Reflecting Rightward Course, Buoy Colombian Leader
By JUAN FORERO

BOGOTÁ, Colombia, March 13 ? While much of South America has veered to the
political left, Colombia has taken a sharp turn to the right as voting
results Monday showed a right-of-center coalition sweeping congressional
elections.

The elections on Sunday, which gave allies of President Álvaro Uribe
overwhelming control of the 268-member Congress, virtually assure him the
political leverage to win re-election in May and to push forward important
items on his agenda, from continuing the fight against Marxist guerrillas to
approving a trade deal with Washington and enacting tough fiscal reforms.

"The big winner was President Uribe," said Juan Manuel Santos, whose
pro-Uribe party, the U Party, did better than any other, winning 20 seats in
the Senate.

With 94 percent of the votes counted on Monday, 61 percent of the Senate's
102 seats and 57 percent of the 166 seats in the lower house had gone to
supporters of Mr. Uribe. Political analysts saw the results as a sign of
Colombia's widespread support for Mr. Uribe's two-pronged strategy to pacify
the country: aggressively fight the rebels while providing benefits to
rightist paramilitary militias to prod them to disarm.

"This was support for his security policies," León Valencia, a political
analyst in Bogotá, said of the vote. "People feel they're better off
economically. They also see the president's ties to Washington and see them
as a secure support."