Since this Monday, Paloma Valencia Laserna (Popayán, 47 years old) is the presidential candidate of the Democratic Center, the party founded by former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez. The current senator will represent the right-wing party in the elections to elect the Colombian head of state. Valencia won two votes, one among citizens in general and the other among party activists, against her compatriots María Fernanda Cabal and Paola Holguín. This was revealed by the party’s director, Gabriel Vallejo, during an event organized in a hall of the Congress of the Republic. “I have this candidacy and my name will appear, but it belongs to three women, María Fernanda, Paola and me,” said the new candidate, thanking her for her election, before congratulating her competitors.
The event, scheduled for 5 p.m., but postponed to 6 p.m. while waiting for the arrival of Senator Cabal, was preceded by a long process of selection of candidates, crossed by the assassination of Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, the frustrated aspiration of his father Miguel Uribe Londoño and the resignation of Senator Andrés Guerra Hoyos from the race. Valencia mentioned them all and sought to give its candidacy a tone of hope. “Colombia’s problems have a solution,” he said in a calmer, less aggressive tone than the one he used on Capitol Hill during difficult legislative debates.
Wearing a black jacket over a bright blue shirt, he gave a speech in which he addressed issues typical of the right, such as security or enrichment, but also some that we usually hear from the rest of the spectrum, such as the environment, a care system for women or inequalities in education. “The problem is not (President Gustavo) Petro, the problem is statism,” said the right-wing party senator.
In a speech oriented more forward than backward, she interrupted her speech at one point because her daughter Amapola, who accompanied her at the lectern, wanted to intervene. He fell silent hearing a few words that were not reflected in the microphones, but which prompted the politician to thank her family, her advisors, and to say that she only rests from her work to share with the little girl, “the greatest love of my life.”
Politics is lagging behind in the polls: the three polls carried out since the end of the ban in November do not give him more than 2% of voting intentions, but his selection is not minor. Uribe is the undisputed leader of the Colombian right and enjoys great popularity. He was elected president twice (2002 and 2006), then he promoted two other candidates to the presidency (2010 and 2018), and in 2014 he managed to advance his candidate to the second round. His only defeat dates back to 2022, when the candidate he had promoted, the current mayor of Medellín Federico Gutiérrez, did not advance to the second round. Since then, the former president has sought to regain political momentum, recently reinforced by his acquittal at second instance in a trial in which he was accused of corruption and witness tampering, and by an opposition strategy hostile to the left-wing president.
The now presidential candidate has belonged to the party since its birth, in 2013. She was elected to the Senate in 2014 on a closed list led by Uribe, and has remained there since. A lawyer and heir to a conservative lineage that included her grandfather, former president Guillermo León Valencia (1962-1966), she was one of the most prominent deputies. Compared to the Cabal and Holguín, it represents the less extreme wing of Uribism. “I only recognize as enemies those who are violent,” Valencia said, a notable contrast to the anti-left tone of other uribistas or right-wing politicians.
The candidate should now participate in an interparty consultation between several right-wing candidates, which would be held simultaneously with the legislative elections on March 8 and would allow this sector of the spectrum to arrive united in the first round, in May. But this mechanism is in doubt. The candidate of this ideological space the strongest in the polls, the ultra Abelardo de la Espriella, has already closed the door to participation in this vote, arguing that the 4.8 million people who supported him with their signatures for his candidacy have “entrusted him with the responsibility of representing them directly in the battle for the presidency”. “Going to a consultation in March would dilute this spontaneous, patriotic and organic mandate, which does not arise from established political structures,” the candidate said in a letter addressed to former President Uribe and sent last Monday, as the legal deadline for candidates to express their interest in participating in a consultation approached. The party leader has since said he could consider different mechanisms, such as a poll.
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