Word: valencias
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Attacks from Within. Liberal Alberto Lleras Camargo, who became Colombia's first coalition President in 1958, was an able administrator who held the frente together by sheer statesmanship. Conservative Valencia, 55, a courtly, scholarly lawyer, lacks his predecessor's élan and political acumen. When his budget came before Congress last October, his own party attacked it as inflationary. But Valencia, the son of Colombia's most revered poet and a lover of poetry himself, has little patience for anything so prosaic as economics. Famed for his gallantry to the ladies and a romantic passion for hunting...
Last week Valencia ordered a 90-day embargo on nearly all imports, hoping to protect the country's depleted dollar reserves. But the ban is more likely to retard industrial expansion and hobble the country's social and economic development. "I am doing all I can," shrugs Valencia. "I am a poor bullfighter with a bad troupe and a very demanding audience...
...Premature." Some bullfight. The frente has split into several factions. One Conservative band consistently criticizes Valencia's policies, and a left-wing offshoot of the Liberal Party has even thrown its support to ex-Dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, whose National Popular Alliance Party went from six to 28 seats after the March congressional elections. "We shall take the government by fair means or foul," vows Rojas, whose followers have taken to wearing a Nazi-like party uniform...
About all that the Conservatives still have in common is their revulsion for Liberal Party Leader Carlos Lleras Restrepo, 56, the Liberal choice for coalition candidate in the 1966 elections. A cousin of Lleras Camargo and one of Valencia's most sulphurous critics, Attorney Lleras is nicknamed "el Prematuro" by his foes because of his visible eagerness for the presidency...
...Watchful Military. The only real power base in Colombia today is the military, and it still seems solidly behind the President. Valencia's war minister, able, astute Major General Alberto Ruiz Novoa, 47, who commanded the Colombian contingent during the Korean War, insists that the armed forces will adhere to their traditional role as "defenders of civilian rule...