The Colombian Senator and presidential candidate Miguel Uribe, who was shot in the head during a campaign event two months ago, died in the early hours of Monday (11), his family reported and the hospital where he was hospitalized. He was 39 years old.
Uribe, from the right opposition, was shot in Bogota on June 7 while speaking in a rally, in an attack that shocked the nation.
His wife, Maria Claudia Tarazona, announced her death on social networks. “I ask God to show me the way to learn to live without you,” she wrote. “Rest in peace, love of my life, I will take care of our children.”
The attack against him recalls an infamous period of political violence in Colombia.
Uribe Turbay was the grandson of Julio César Turbay Ayala (Liberal Party), who ruled the country between 1978 and 1982, and died in 2005.
The politician’s mother was Diana Turbay, a hijacked and murdered journalist in 1991 during a rescue operation by drug traffickers from the Medellin cartel under the command of Pablo Escobar.
The grandmother, Nydia Quintero de Balcázar, is the founder of the organization “Solidaridad by Colombia”.
In the early 1990s, when Turbay’s mother was killed, Colombia lived one of the worst moments of political violence with the murder of several presidential candidates.
Uribe Turbay was the highlight of a new generation of politicians, children of deceased figures, along with the current mayor of Bogota, Carlos Fernando Galán and one of his greatest rivals in the Senate, María José Pizarro.
Galán is the son of the liberal leader, Luis Carlos Galán, murdered in 1989 during a campaign rally. Already Pizarro, is the daughter of Carlos Pizarro Leongómez, killed in 1990 while running for the presidency for the M-19 Left Party.
Turbay had been a senator since 2022 by the Democratic Center Party. He was a candidate for Bogota City Hall in 2019, in which he was fourth.
Previously, he served as councilor of the capital from 2012 to 2015 and as secretary of government in the City Hall of Enrique Peñalosa (from 2016 to 2019).
The Colombian politician was a master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University, and identified as right in Colombia.
He argued that security is a central pillar of public administration, as well as a boost for foreign investment.
In October 2024, where the mother was murdered, Turbay announced her aspiration to run for president in the 2026 elections.
At the time, he said that her death determined his life: “I could have grown up seeking revenge, but I decided to do the right thing: forgive, but never forget.”
The Democratic Center has not yet announced an official presidential candidate.
The campaign in Colombia continues in the early stages.
