In spite of accumulating accusations and legal pressure over his alleged ties to paramilitary death squads, Colombia’s former President Alvaro Uribe announced on Monday to run for the senate in the 2014 elections.
During a press conference in his home in Rionegro, Antioquia, Uribe announced his “presence as candidate on the list of the Democratic Center [party] for the senate.”
The polemic former president told press that his party will intend to reach congress to defend key issues of Uribe’s former “Democratic Security” policy with the focus on security, investors’ confidence, social cohesion and conservative fiscal policies.
Uribe’s candidacy came as no surprise after the former head of state on Sunday said he felt “obliged” to stay involved in Colombian politics, three years after leaving office.
MORE: I feel obliged to continue in politics: Uribe
According to Uribe, his newly found party seeks to “help confront the deterioration of security, the increased insecurity in investment, the clogging of the bureaucratized social policies, waste of government resources and the abandoning of the popular dialogue over the risk of surrendering the country to terrorism” and leftist forces loyal to Cuban dictator Raul Castro and Venezuela’s leftist government.
The former President claimed that under his successor, President Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia lost “authority, the legitimacy of institutions, confidence of social sectors and businessmen, and … social discipline.”
Uribe did not mention mounting legal trouble as a result of alleged ties to paramilitary umbrella organization AUC over which the former head of state and a number of his party’s candidates are investigated.
MORE: Paramilitaries Donated $1 Million To Uribe’s 2002 Campaign: ‘Don Berna’
A Medellin court recently ordered Congress to charge the former president for “parapolitics,” something already investigated by the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Inspector General. One of Uribe’s party’s primary candidates was recently arrested for aligning with the AUC, while two other presidential and three more congressional candidates are under investigation.
MORE: 4 Democratic Center Congressional Candidates Under Criminal Investigation
Sources
- Expresidente Uribe anuncia candidatura al Senado (Radio Santa Fe)
- Uribe encabezará listas del Centro Democrático (Primero Colombia)