One of Colombia’s most polemic politicians withdrew from the ongoing presidential race on Monday after failing to draw support.
Former Liberal Party Senator Piedad Cordoba slammed what she views as discrimination against women and prejudice against those of African descent in politics.
Cordoba is one of Colombia’s most-hated politicians over her years-long friendship with late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and unfounded claims she belonged to the FARC guerrilla group.
None of the polls estimated that Cordoba would obtain more than 2% of the votes on May 27, but Cordoba remained defiant.
“My withdrawal from the electoral race does not mean my withdrawal from politics, I will continue alongside the Colombians, closer to the villages than to the palaces,” the former senator told press.
“For me, politics is a passion,” she added.
The teary-eyed former senator paid tribute to Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, an iconic liberal leader who was assassinated exactly 70 years ago, claiming that her future political work in the future will be grounded in the historic politician’s legacy.
“We reaffirm ourselves as legitimate heirs of Dr. Jorge Eliecer Gaitan’s vision of a better, fairer, more equitable Colombia; a Colombia of progress, development and modernity,” she said.
Cordoba claimed that Colombia’s macho culture was the blame for her exclusion from presidential debates.
Now that Cordoba has withdrawn from the presidential campaign, which she entered through the collection of 1.3 million signatures, she said she would focus on promoting peace.
“I promise to work for peace, to fight for peace,” the now-former presidential candidate said.
Colombians will go to the polls in May to elect a successor to Nobel Peace Prize-winning Juan Manuel Santos whose second term as head of state comes to an end.
Early opinion polls indicate that Colombians are bitterly divided between the leading candidate Ivan Duque of the hard-right Democratic Center party and social democrat anti-corruption advocate Gustavo Petro.