The death of Miguel Uribe Turbay shudders Colombia. The news was confirmed in the early hours of Monday, August 11, when the Santa Fe Foundation of Bogotá reported that the presidential senator and candidate did not survive the serious injuries suffered in a shot at a shot in shooting last June 7. He was 39 years old and, until the moment of the attack, headed the internal surveys of the Democratic Center with a view to the presidential 2026.
Uribe Turbay was shot at the exit of a political act in the town of Fontibón, Bogotá. He received at least three shots – two of them in the head -, which resulted in an emergency transfer and multiple neurosurgical interventions that kept the country in suspense for two months. Despite the medical efforts and an intense citizen prayer chain that included a massive “march of silence”, its neurological picture worsened until it was derived in its death.
The political impact is immediate. Uribe Turbay was not a leader: lawyer, with training at the University of Los Andes and in Harvard, grandson of former president Julio César Turbay Ayala and son of journalist Diana Turbay – assigned in 1991 by narcoterrorism -, represented for broad sectors of the Center a generational renewal with national experience and projection. He was councilor of Bogotá, president of the Council, Secretary of Government of the capital and, since 2022, the most voted senator in the country.
In recent months he had hardened his speech against President Gustavo Petro, whom he accused of promoting a “state self -golpe” with a decree to convene a popular consultation without Congress approval. Before the attack, he prepared judicial actions against the president and his ministers, consolidating his profile as a frontal opponent in institutionality and security issues.
His murder occurs in a moment of strong political tension and rebound of violence against social leaders, candidates and public figures in Colombia. The crime not only truncated the career of a presidential applicant, but aggravates the perception that electoral competition remains, in many cases, a high risk activity. Research on mobile and responsible barely begins, but the nature of the attack reinforces the suspicion of a political component.
By rn
Image gallery
