A group of Congress members from Colombia’s Liberal Party called on their presidential candidate Rafael Pardo to “open up” to the possibility of alliances with other candidates, reported El Espectador on Wednesday.
In a meeting held Tuesday, led by Alfonso Lopez, who also ran for the Liberal presidential candidacy, a group of 30 congressional representatives from the party, including congressmen Jorge Homero Giraldo, German Olano Becerra and Carlos Arturo Piedrahita, appealed to Pardo to “open up the party to alliances” and look for other candidates with whom to form political unions.
Also attending the meeting was former president and Liberal Party leader, Cesar Gaviria Trujillo, who reiterated his support for Pardo’s campaign but stressed the difficulty of gaining a high enough share of the vote to enter the second round of elections.
Rafael Pardo gained just 5.1% of votes in a recent voter intentions survey by polling agency Gallup.
Formerly independent candidates Antanas Mockus and Sergio Fajardo, who in the same poll received 10.4% and 6.1% of the votes respectively, on Monday announced their intention to form a political union for the coming presidential election, with Fajardo running as Mockus’ vice-presidential candidate.