Bogotá, June 7 (EFE).- Colombian former presidents Álvaro Uribe, Juan Manuel Santos, Iván Duque, Andrés Pastrana and Ernesto Samper unanimously condemned on Saturday the attack against Senator and presidential pre-candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay, in an unusual consensus among figures historically opposed in national politics. Uribe Turbay, senator of the Uribista Centro Democrático party and presidential candidate in 2026, was seriously injured this Saturday when he received several shots during a political event in Fontibón, a neighborhood in the west of Bogotá. “They attacked a hope of the homeland, a great husband, father, son, brother, a great work colleague,” Uribe (2002-2010) wrote on his X account, where he also expressed his “trust in doctors, in the Armed Forces and in justice,” and appealed to “citizen reflection.”
Despite being of liberal origin, the party of his maternal grandfather, former President Julio César Turbay (1978-1982), Miguel Uribe Turbay has, in recent years, grown closer to former President Uribe and become one of the most notable figures in his party, the Democratic Center.
The former president Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018), who succeeded Uribe and maintained a tense relationship with him, wrote: “Where have we come to? We condemn in the strongest terms the attack on Miguel Uribe. Our solidarity with his family. A call for calm, to surround the institutions and to defend our democracy.”Former President Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002) also joined these pronouncements, and personally visited the Medicentro Clinic, in western Bogotá, where the injured senator was initially treated.
Ernesto Samper (1994-1998) also spoke out, stating: “I emphatically and vehemently reject the attack against Miguel Uribe. We cannot allow violence to silence political voices and positions.”
Furthermore, he urged the Government to “take urgent measures to guarantee the integrity of all candidates” and demanded clarification of “the identity and motives of the infamous perpetrators.” Samper was also seriously injured in an attack at the Bogotá airport on March 3, 1989, five before reaching the Presidency, when he was talking with the leftist politician José Antequera, who was murdered on the spot by a hitman. Also, former President Iván Duque (2018-2022), who was elected by the Democratic Center, expressed his support: “All my solidarity with Miguel Uribe and his family. We reject this cowardly act and demand a prompt investigation by the authorities to find those responsible.”
