Colombia's opposition is hobbled by senator's murder, leader's scandal

Miami Herald

3 days ago

BOGOTA, Columbia - After losing its most popular presidential candidate to a shock shooting, Colombia's conservative opposition is reeling.
Senator Miguel Uribe's death provides the powerful Centro Democrático party with the opportunity to launch a full-scale attack against President Gustavo Petro's security strategy - not to mention the scandals and weak economy taking a toll on the administration.
Instead, the opposition remains "deeply fractured," according to Sebastián Líppez, dean of political science at Javeriana University.
Dozens of potential contenders across the political spectrum are vying to position themselves ahead of intra-party consultations in October and the formal start of the campaign at the end of January. Centro Democrático is also handicapped by the bribery conviction of its leader Álvaro Uribe, making it much harder to point the finger at government malfeasance.
"During the next few months they must focus on finding that single candidate and forming alliances," Líppez said in an interview. "A fragmented right wing or center-right will be destined to fail in the next elections."
The opposition has yet to successfully tap voter dissatisfaction with Petro. The leftist leader has failed to deliver on key campaign promises or produce tangible results from his "total peace" initiative, under which the government is negotiating with several guerrilla factions and drug-trafficking gangs simultaneously.
Miguel Uribe was a critic of that strategy, warning that it emboldened criminals and left swathes of Colombia vulnerable again. His death Monday, two months after he was shot in the head, evokes memories of a darker era when four presidential candidates were murdered during the height of cartel violence more than three decades ago. Uribe's own mother was killed in 1991 after being kidnapped by Pablo Escobar's henchmen.
The 39-year-old's assassination focuses the debate on the failure of Petro's peace policy, which ought to bolster its critics, according to Líppez. But even so, Colombia's conservatives still need a strong candidate to challenge the president's Pacto Histórico coalition, he said.
A first-round vote will be held in May, with a potential runoff the next month. Petro can't run again and has yet to anoint a preferred successor from within his movement's ranks. There are no clear front-runners on either side of the spectrum, and a recent law banning the publication of voter intention polls until November isn't making assessing the race any easier.
"The sense of disarray seems likely to favor a candidate that represents decisive change, particularly in terms of security policy," said Jimena Zúñiga, Latin America geoeconomics analyst at Bloomberg Economics. "This would favor a pendulum shift more than moderation toward the center, but Petro's low approval rate, combined with Colombia's runoff system, means the center is far from hopeless."
Security wasn't a major worry for Colombians in the years leading up to Petro's election in 2022, according to María Margarita Zuleta, head of the school of government at Los Andes University. But it's now "become one of the most serious problems," she said.
With Petro's administration favoring talks over force, illegal armed groups have expanded their reach while cocaine production soared to a record. High-impact crimes have spiked. Kidnappings for ransom jumped 164% in the first half of this year, compared to the same period of 2022, government data show. And extortions are up 44% since before the leftist president took office.
On the economic front, inflation ticked up unexpectedly last month while weak finances prompted the government to suspend borrowing limits in June, to the dismay of ratings agencies and foreign investors. Politically, some of Petro's closes allies are being investigated for alleged misdeeds including embezzlement and money laundering.
Yet security is now the top concern among Colombians, ahead of both the economy and corruption, according to the latest Invamer poll. Some 64% of respondents think the nation is going down the wrong path, versus 31% who say it's headed in the right direction. Petro's approval rating, however, ticked up to 37%, while disapproval edged down to 58% - his best net score since November 2022.
The president, for all his missteps, still knows "how to capitalize on people's frustration regarding inequality," Zuleta explained. "There is a group of people who continue to see him as a way out."
Petro's long-time rival, meanwhile, is now under house arrest. Álvaro Uribe became the first Colombian head of state to be convicted of a crime last month, when a judge found him guilty of obstructing justice in a case that centers on allegations he dispatched intermediaries to prisons to pressure former members of illegal armed groups into altering their testimony.
Though Uribe and the slain senator weren't related, they were close allies. The former president, whose father was killed by guerrillas, deployed the military to combat cartels and rebel groups, overseeing declines in homicides that propelled him to massive popularity during his time in office, from 2002 to 2010.
Uribe is such a prominent figure in Colombia that despite his problems with the justice system he'll be the "king-maker" of the 2026 presidential race, according to Pedro Viveros, a Bogotá-based political analyst and corporate consultant.
That marks a sharp turn from three years ago, when Uribe's support was seen as detrimental given the anti-establishment mood that swept the nation and led to Petro's election as the country's first leftist leader.
'Monopolized' Discourse
"Anything that happens in the center-right and the right will pass through the Centro Democrático, which is Álvaro Uribe," Viveros said. "People are frustrated that this government didn't deliver - and they will be looking for someone who can."
But to Líppez, the Javeriana University dean, Centro Democrático isn't "the great force that concentrates the opposition," but instead is now just "one more voice in a much more fragmented scenario with multiple actors who are in dispute with the government" after Petro "monopolized the political discussion."
It may take until March, when regional and congressional elections are held, and parties can hold presidential primaries, before the field of hopefuls is boiled down to the main contenders.
No matter what, Viveros said, opposition to Petro "is what will unite the center and right candidates."
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