The former president and former senator in the first instance for bribery and procedural fraud, is proposed to continue agglutinating around him to the most conservative sectors of Colombia. To do this, he will aspire to the Congress of the Republic again in the 2026 elections. This was announced by surprise on Wednesday Gabriel Vallejo, the director of the Democratic Center, the party founded and presided over vital by the ex -president. “It is Álvaro Uribe Vélez, which will be number 25” on the list to the Senate, Vallejo confirmed in statements to the press.
The former president has been the protagonist to a greater or lesser extent of all the great electoral appointments so far in the century, in his own flesh or in a foreign body, and the cycle of legislative and presidential next year will not be the exception. Uribe’s candidacy (Medellín, 73 years) still depends on judicial definitions, since this aspiration is also a challenge to inability to exercise public office for eight years that accompanies the conviction in the so -called trial of the century, pending a ratification in the second instance. The distant place on the list is illustrative, as it reflects that the toughest reference party is intended to strengthen a robust bench of at least 25 senators – today is 19–.
“This conviction, despite the years I have, encourages me to continue fighting for Colombia and denounce these anomalies, which today affect me, as long as the process of consolidating the neocommunist dictatorship that will affect other compatriots,” said Uribe last month at the audience in which he met the verdict, in reference to the government of the leftist Gustavo Petro, in the antipodes He has less than a year left in power. “The policy on the right to condemn me has predominated,” he said. Uribismo has hardened the tone since he met the sentence, he has even summoned support marches to his leader, and insistently plays the letter of political persecution.
Incombustible, the president of the “firm hand and the big heart” is probably in the politician who divides Colombian society, and the one who unleashes the most passions. He is still the only president who has managed to be chosen with more than half of the votes without the need for a second round since the ballot system was established with the 1991 Constitution, a political letter that reformed in his day to be able to present himself to re -election.
After leaving the presidency after eight years in 2010, Uribe has managed to stay as. During the two periods of his successor, (2010-2018), he became the most strong opponent of negotiations with the FARC guerrillas, and the peace agreement sealed at the end of 2016. On the way he congregated the most religious and conservative sectors around the democratic center and propelled the arrival at the Nariño house of Iván Duque (2018-2022) Petro
In that same electoral cycle, Uribe became the most voted senator in history by leading the lists of his party, with 870,000 votes. A political current was consolidated around him that in practice embodies radical right positions. Although it maintained very high levels of popularity throughout its two periods, its acceptance in the surveys has shown a constant decline. 10% of respondents declare a partisan affinity with the Democratic Center in a recent study of figures and concepts, only behind the 17% that records the historical pact, the left -wing coalition that led Petro to power.
The judicial process that has it against the strings dates back to 2012, when it was Uribe himself who filed a complaint against the senator, today one of the presidential candidates of the historical pact. He accused him of an alleged plot against him that, according to his version, he involved false witnesses in Colombian prisons to link him to the activities of paramilitary groups. However, the case gave an abrupt turn in 2018, when the Supreme Court abstained to process Cepeda and, on the contrary, asked to investigate the former president under the suspicion that it had been he who manipulated witnesses to retract and accuse Cepeda. Uribe came to renounce the Senate to get out of the orbit of Al High Court in charge of processing legislators, but the case followed his long procedure in ordinary justice.
