Former Colombian hostage may start new political drive

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Could Ingrid Betancourt become Colombia's next president?

It was one of the first questions she was asked after being freed in a helicopter rescue Wednesday from six years in rebel captivity.

Betancourt was running for president when she was kidnapped in 2002, and recent polls show she's Colombia's second-most popular politician after her former rival, President Alvaro Uribe, who is constitutionally barred from a third term.

So far, Betancourt has publicly deflected such talk, saying "only God knows" about her political future and that she needs to consult with her children and mother before making any decisions.

"At this moment, I just want to feel like one more Colombian soldier serving the country," she said.

But every move since her liberation suggests she has emerged from the jungle with her political senses keenly intact, according to people who know her well.

"It's very clear what she's doing. She had six years to think about what she would say that day," said Eduardo Chavez, an adviser from her 2002 campaign. "It's clear that her presidential campaign continues, with Uribe or without him."

Betancourt, a product of the privileged political classes of both Colombia and France, was running against Uribe as a fringe-party, anti-establishment candidate before she was kidnapped. Since her rescue, she's been celebrated by Uribe and conservative French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and basked Friday in the adoration of citizens of both nations.

Some Colombians who recalled the center-left politician's openness to negotiating with the rebels during her campaign against Uribe were stunned to hear her praise his 2006 re-election as "very good for Colombia." She also praised the military buildup against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -- and the soldiers returned her admiration.

It was a soldier's rare tribute to a civilian when Gen. Freddy Padilla -- who commanded the elaborately planned rescue of the rebels' highest-value hostages -- saluted Betancourt on the airport tarmac Wednesday. "I told her that she has impressive mental clarity and that I respect her," Padilla explained to The Associated Press later.

And many Colombians were surely impressed when Betancourt saluted back and promised to share what she knows of rebel methods with military leaders, joking that she has earned "a Ph.D. in knowledge of the FARC" while in captivity.

"With such gestures, she had the soldiers in her pocket," Chavez said, who said Betancourt never acts without first calculating the political consequences.

The next presidential election is almost two years off, but speculation is swirling. Many Colombians wonder whether the overwhelmingly popular Uribe will try to change the constitution so he can seek a third term.

Meanwhile, former Defense Minister Rafael Pardo has already declared his candidacy, and another would-be president is current Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos, who gets considerable credit for the mission's success.

Colombia's traditional two party system -- pitting the Liberals against the Conservatives -- fractured badly after Uribe, a former Liberal, ran as an independent in 2002. Betancourt also left the Liberals and formed the "Green Oxygen" party. Since then, however, Uribe's conservative coalition has become immensely popular, and Santos, a former Betancourt ally in the Liberal Party, is among many politicians who joined Uribe.

When elected in 1998, Betancourt was considered the most popular senator in Colombia. When she ran for president, she was pushing for a referendum to fight corruption by reconstituting Congress. It was a quixotic campaign at the time, but congressional corruption remains a problem: 10 percent of the 268 lawmakers are behind bars, and another 10 percent are under investigation for alleged collusion with right-wing death squads. The majority are Uribe allies.

Betancourt's approval rating was just 24 percent in a December 2001 Gallup survey, but that soared to 71 percent in a March poll, just behind Uribe, whose rebel crackdown has put him consistently in the 70th percentile.

Uribe has been cagey on whether he might seek re-election in the scheduled May 2010 vote, though supporters are collecting signatures to draft him, assuming the constitution can be changed.

An Uribe-Betancourt alliance of some sort would be formidable, political analyst Rafael Nieto said.

"She emerged from hell," so her praise of the president and criticism of the FARC is normal, said Carlos Alonso Lucio, a former congressman who worked closely with Betancourt in the 1990s. "I don't think she'll leave (politics), because it was the rebels who took her out, and she has every right to continue with her career."