Less than two weeks before the end of this legislative period, there are at least 40 bills and legislative acts awaiting approval on the agenda. The goal in the House of Representatives is to do as much as possible this week so representatives can focus on budget transfers for coffee growers’ subsidies and debating the health reform next week.

Legislators are not, however, committing to passing the health reform and admitted that there will be some bills left out such as the modernization of Congress.

With presidential and congressional elections right around the corner, the U Party asked Cambio Radical to join forces and approach the race in 2014 as a united party.

The proposal was introduced by Senate president, Roy Barreras, who said “we have great interest in the U Party and Cambio Radical finding common ground and unity, we will be proposing formal conversations between directors (…) in order to hopefully appear as one party in defense of Juan Manuel Santos.”

“We are two parties that share everything, we share the goal of defending the Santos administration’s good purpose, of reelecting the President, we share the goal of peace, so we can share the goal of electoral strategy,” said Barreras, who is also the head of the U Party.

The Colombian Senate decided to postpone the debate on same sex marriage until Tuesday, April 23^rd, due to problems with the live television broadcast.

After an agreement reached between the Conservative and U Parties, it’s expected that the bill will not go beyond a second debate.

According to Senator Armando Benedetti, if the bill is rejected it would be a “backwards position” and feels it would then be up to the Constitutional Court to reclaim the rights for these communities.

Former President of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, denied that a member of the Colombian military leaked the coordinates of locations where military operation were supposed to be suspended as part of the peace process, so guerrilla members could be picked up and transported to Havana, Cuba, where they would participate in peace talks.

“That information isn’t known because there are leaks from the Armed Forces but because this administration negotiated it with Farc. And who do we hear it from? Reporters, politicians, those close to the peace process and Farc, who reveal it,” Uribe said in a radio interview.

“Now they want to cover up the issue and they want to blame it on a leak calling it betrayal (…) Mr. President, betrayal of the nation is one of the crimes your Government is committing because it allows soldiers and police officers to be murdered and those crimes are left unpunished. That’s betraying your country,” Uribe said.

Former Senator Piedad Córdoba suggested that President Juan Manuel Santos’ presidential term be extended by two years to allow time for the peace process to end in an agreement. Córdoba, who addressed the media from the University of Cartagena, said this is vital for the process to follow its course and avoid being destabilized due to politics.

The former senator said its better to extend Santos’ presidential term than to open the debate about the possibility of a reelection in 2014. “The President may not be thinking about reelection, but in a lot of people’s minds that is the belief, when what we are looking for here is peace,” she said.

Experts feel Córdoba’s idea is unviable because to expand the presidential term it would be necessary to modify the constitution, which would lead to a number of debates that would actually coincide with the campaign season.

Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos and former President Alvaro Uribe refused to “sit down for coffee”, as suggested on Sunday by Vice-President, Angelino Garzón.

The VP said President Santos called him to say he isn’t interested in controversy with former presidents Andrés Pastrana and Alvaro Uribe, while Uribe also rejected the idea and said Santos betrayed 90 percent of his voters.

Garzón said he will continue to build bridges in hopes of bringing the president and the former presidents closer to an understanding. “Nobody would understand that we are looking for peace on the ouside but on the inside we are fighting like cats and dogs,” he said.

A Bogotá court denied probation for former Minister of Agriculture, Andres Felipe Arias, after making the determination that he could obstruct the investigation currently underway for his involvement in the Agro Ingreso Seguro scandal.

Magistrate Hermes Lara said Arias is still a risk to the investigation, in concurrence with the Attorney General’s office, which requested Arias’ arrest in July of 2011 arguing that Arias was trying to hinder the process by meeting with others involved.

The case against Arias is in the hands of the Supreme Court and a ruling could still take several months.

“Juan Manuel was a good Minister of the Treasury and was obviously elected with Uribe’s votes," says Francisco Santos, "I thought he was going to be a good president. I made a mistake, those of us who voted for him made a mistake."

He’s hyperactive and outspoken. “I am a child of violence,” he says, and remembers episodes that his memory refuses to erase. Today, he is vowing to go after the Presidency of Colombia as a candidate for ‘uribismo’, the party of former president Alvaro Uribe, and he talks about the qualifications that make him the right man to replace Juan Manuel Santos, including his experience as a journalist and Alvaro Uribe’s vice-president.

For Francisco Santos the situation is a bit awkward considering current president, Juan Manuel Santos, is his cousin; but Alvaro Uribe is his mentor. Francisco Santos is a skeptic of the peace process and says his cousin’s administration is not a good one.

Why do you think you have a chance at being president?

Because of my history. I am a child of violence. I was kidnapped by Pablo Escobar; I created País Libre (Free Country), I marched against kidnapping (…) In 2000 I was forced to leave the country because Farc was going to kill me. I returned to continue serving as Vice-President. I learned from the best teacher of public management, of politics, that financial monster and connoisseur of the State: Alvaro Uribe. Those eight years were a PhD in politics and public management.

And your proposals?

I propose a federal nation, judicial reform and industrial policy that defends national industry, which is disappearing because I see that President Juan Manuel Santos’ weakness is that he is disconnected. The country is headed backwards in security, in everything, and I will not let those eight years we were in office, which changed the face of Colombia, go to waste.

Are you torn because on one hand you support Uribe but your cousin is in power on the other?

No. But it’s obviously not the most comfortable position. I believe that the country is above family and it’s moving backwards, it’s doing so in every sense: financial, social, political and in security, which is the basis for everything. We left a country that trusted its leaders but today it doesn’t trust them at all. That’s why, despite the discomfort, I am in the race for the Presidency and I feel it’s time for the country to head in the right direction again.

Is what you’re saying that the government of President Santos is a bad one?

Yes, without a doubt. Santos’ is an administration that fails to execute, one that received a car with a full tank of gas, used it up and doesn’t even know where the nearest gas station is. It’s frankly a government without a north, that gets scared by a headline in a newspaper and runs to change its position. One that set security aside, that is sending contradictory messages to industrial and agricultural leaders, to farmers. It’s a government that arrived with Uribe’s ideas and governed with the opposing party’s: the Liberals. It’s a bad government.

How do you view the peace process?

With skepticism. I feel Farc has sized up the President and they are going to squeeze every last drop out of him. And all behind Colombians’ backs. Do you think it’s a coincidence that agreements are announced right after the poll in which his image came out so poorly; do you think those congressmen traveling to Havana at that very moment is a coincidence? No. The president is using the peace process as a political tool.

Do you have a way to fight President Santos’ eventual reelection?

Absolutely. We will have at least a third of the Congress and the President, and that will be me, Pacho Santos.

I believe in a government that works in the regions, with the people and for the people, so much that I want to institutionalize it as a federal country. I want Uribe in my Government, advising me. It’s as if I started a technology company and Bill Gates came by and said, “let me help you” and I said no. That’s what Santos did and if Uribe allowed me I would make him Defense Minister.

Colombia’s Foreign Relations Minister, Maria Angela Holguín, reversed the appointment of Francisco José Zuccardi, brother of senator Piedad Zuccardi, to the Colombian consulate in Mérida, Venezuela, after the controversy generated by the announcement.

The appointment came just one day before the Supreme Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Piedad Zuccardi for her alleged ties to paramilitary groups. Ms. Zuccardi has yet to appear before the Court to give her testimony.

The President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, claimed that he has kept 64 percent of the prmises he made during his presidential campaign. The goals for his administration, Mr. Santos explained, have been met greatly because of programs like Families in Action, which already surpassed the goal set for the four-year term.  “The Director of the Social  Prosperity Agency has informed me that we are beyond 2,6 million, which we had promised for the end of the term,” the President said.

The Government is now hoping that poverty and extreme poverty indicators reflect a reduction. If numbers show that poverty was reduced to less than 30 percent and extreme poverty to less than 10 percent, “then we will have met that goal one year and seven months ahead of schedule,” Mr. Santossaid.