Presidential candidate Juan Manuel Santos stressed in an interview Wednesday that he is “not Uribe,” and that if Colombians are “tired of a certain governing style, they can relax.”
Despite distancing himself from Uribe’s governing style, Santos admitted that he did not consider being the “heir of a person who has a 75% approval rating” to be a “drag,” when asked if he saw a negative side to being seen as Uribe’s successor.
Santos also admitted that his campaign was probably hurt by the late news of Uribe not running for a third term, as the Partido de la U candidate “was not allowed to have as long as the other candidates had to campaign.”
When queried on the rapid rise of rival candidate, Antanas Mockus, Santos said that he was not worried about the Green Party leader and that he respected him, but just didn’t know “what he wants.”
On the issue of false positives, Santos claimed that “complaints have fallen dramatically” to the point where the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said that what he had done was “exemplary.”
