May Posted by glhermine. Congressional elections were held in Colombia on March 11, The first round of the presidential election will be held on May 27, with a second round, if necessary, scheduled for June 17, Two open presidential primaries were held in parallel to the congressional elections on March Colombia is a decentralized presidential republic.
It has three branches of government — presidential, legislative and judicial — with, in theory, separation of powers and checks and balances. The President is directly elected to a single, non-renewable four year term in a two round election, with an absolute majority required to win in the first round. Because Colombia recognizes blank votes votos en blanco as valid votes, an absolute majority is not required to win in the runoff.
The original text of the Constitution limited presidents to a single, non-renewable term, thereby banning both consecutive and non-consecutive reelection under the previous constitution, written in , non-consecutive reelection was allowed.
In , the Constitution was amended to allow one single reelection either consecutive and non-consecutive , setting a two term limit. In , a highly controversial attempt to hold a citizen-initiated referendum to allow for a second reelection for a total of three terms was ruled unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court in February The constitutional reform abolished presidential reelection, returning to the original text of the Constitution.
The President must be a natural-born citizen over the age of The President freely appoints and dismisses cabinet ministers, diplomats, directors of administrative departments and other heads of public institutions. In addition to these direct appointments, the President nominates three candidates for Attorney General elected by the Supreme Court for a four-year term , one of the three candidates for Inspector General elected by the Senate for a four-year term , three of the nine magistrates of the Constitutional Court elected by the Senate from lists of three nominees, for staggered eight-year terms and the seven members of the disciplinary jurisdictional chamber of the Supreme Council of Judiciary elected by Congress from lists of three nominees.
