Colombia’s former President Alvaro Uribe will take part in the 2026 elections, according to the president of his far-right Democratic Center (CD) party.
In a press statement, CD president Gabriel Vallejo said that Uribe will be #25 on his party’s Senate candidate list.
The former president resigned from the Senate in 2020 in an attempt to evade a Supreme Court investigation into his attempt to bribe witnesses to sustain fraudulent criminal charges against Senator Ivan Cepeda, the left’s main candidate in next year’s presidential elections.
A Bogota court convicted Uribe in July and sentenced him to 12 years house arrest in August. The sentence bars the former president from holding public office.
Vallejo announced Uribe’s renewed political aspirations after the Bogota appeals court suspended the sentence to allow the former president to appeal the conviction in freedom.
Uribe’s conviction, pending criminal investigations into other prominent CD politicians and the assassination of the the party’s main presidential hopeful, Senator Miguel Uribe, plunged the far-right collective in an unprecedented crisis.
According to the CD’s director, Uribe’s participation may help his lesser known comrades get 25 sets in the Senate.
It is an honor that he is considering it, at such a difficult time for Colombia and the Democratic Center in recent months. This is his party, the party with a firm hand and a big heart.
Gabriel Vallejo
The party’s strategy to maintain their political strength after next year’s elections depend entirely on the former president’s “legal issues,” Vallejo admitted.
Apart from waiting for the verdict of the appeals court, Uribe is being investigated for his alleged role in two massacres and the assassination of a human rights defender.
This year’s trial revealed that the former president bribed witnesses to obstruct investigations into hi family’s alleged role in the paramilitary groups that, among other things, carried out the massacre and assassinated the human rights defender when Uribe was governor of the Antioquia province.
Related posts:
