Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a 2026 presidential candidate for the Democratic Centre Party, succumbed on August 11 to wounds sustained on June 7 in an assassination attempt at a campaign rally. Uribe Turbay was shot three times by a 14-year-old while rallying supporters in the Colombian capital of Bogotá.
The young man arrested for the murder is suspected by Colombian authorities to have been a hired killer, with another man arrested on July 5 accused of being the “mastermind.”. One police theory blames remnant factions of the Colombian Marxist terrorist group FARC. Many such groups have plagued the nation for decades. One such group, M-19, once counted among their members the current President Gustavo Petro.
In the Colombian Senate, Uribe Turbay often harped on his nemesis’s communist past. In 2019, his fellow Democratic Centre Senator Maria Fernanda Cabal accused the New York Times staff in Colombia of being sympathetic to the communist terrorists. The party has been the most vocal and outspoken critic of the current leftist government since it won in the 2022 election.
Among the first to send their condolences from abroad was Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Rubio wrote on X that “the United States stands in solidarity with [Miguel Uribe Turbay’s] family, the Colombian people, both in mourning and demanding justice for those responsible.”
Uribe Turbay’s Democratic Centre Party is a Christian democratic party that has been described by its opponents on the left as “far-right.” In truth, it is best understood as a mainstream right-wing populist party.
Uribe Turbay was elected to the Colombian Senate under its banner in 2022. He was the grandson of Julio César Turbay Ayala, who served as Colombia’s president from 1978 to 1982. Tragedy is not a new occurrence for the family. Uribe Turbay’s aunt, Diana Turbay, was kidnapped and murdered in 1990 by the infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar while serving as a journalist.
Uribe Turbay received his undergraduate degree from Universidad de Los Andes before heading to the United States for a master’s in public administration from Harvard University. He leaves behind a wife and young child. The assassinated conservative’s bride announced his death on Instagram, closing by asking “God to show me the way to learn to live without you.”
In contrast, President Petro delivered a single sentence of acknowledgement on X, writing “my deepest condolences to the family of Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, and to all Colombians.” The sentence was followed by 16 paragraphs touting Petro’s own achievements.
In a post ostensibly serving to mourn the murder of one of his most vocal critics, Petro spoke of a supposed past “political genocide committed against the country’s left,” claimed to “have sought to establish a new paradigm” and added “[W]e have not persecuted any member of the opposition, nor will we.”
In addition to a widow and toddler, Uribe Turbay’s death leaves the conservative movement in Colombia in rudderless disarray after the murder of their fastest rising star. He had been the top vote-getter on the Colombian right in 2022. His campaign, promising deregulation and a rejection of leftist social policy, led the polls to seize victory in Colombia’s presidential primaries and offer a chance to prevent leftist President Petro from securing a second term.
The last time it was in office, the Democratic Centre Party sparked controversy for working with the Florida Republican Party. Together, they urged Colombian-Americans to vote for President Donald Trump’s re-election in 2020. The Biden administration was subsequently accused of cooling relations with Colombia in response.
President Gustavo Petro has faced off against President Trump several times, most recently resulting in the revocation of his visa to visit the United States. The murder of Petro’s most prominent critic exposes the decline in Colombian democracy and augurs bad tidings for the future of American-Colombian relations.
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