The long electoral campaign for the 2026 presidential elections in Colombia has already begun, and it has begun in a climate that is nothing short of civil war. Candidates to challenge the current president, the socialist Gustavo Petro, are already coming forward, but one of them, the 39-year-old Senator Miguel Uribe, was the victim of an attack on Saturday, June 7. During a rally in Bogota, Uribe was joined by three gunshots, including two to the head: he is still hospitalized in critical condition, but his life is not in danger. The senator is the leader of the Democratic Center, one of the opposition parties, but it is still unclear whether the attacker, who at the moment appears to be a 14-year-old arrested by the police, acted for political motives or for other reasons, perhaps linked to organized crime and drug trafficking. The fact remains that the climate in Colombia has been very heavy for some time, so much so that the South American press is comparing it to the brutal one between the 80s and 90s, that is, the era of Pablo Escobar.
The attack on Miguel Uribe, opponent of President Petro
The Democratic Center is a party founded by former president Alvaro Uribe, who was in office from 2002 to 2010 and whose electoral campaigns were financed by the famous Medellín cartel. Although he was a lawyer by profession and therefore a man of law, the liberal was great ally of Pablo Escobar himself and his political experience has therefore been more than controversial. Today his party is among Petro's major opponents, and many blame the current president, in office since 2022, for the climate of tension: Petro in fact condemned the attack last Saturday but deliberately did not mention the victim, Miguel Uribe, maintaining however that "curiously the senator's protection that day was reduced from 7 to 3 bodyguards". The president is apparently encouraging the polarization of public debate, inciting his supporters and according to some stifling dissent, so much so that his popularity rating is very low. However, he should be recognized instead for a great reformist push, especially on progressive issues such as justice, health, work, the environment and social security. Many of these reforms are still stalled, so much so that last year the president was forced to propose a Constituent Assembly to unblock the situation, but this project is also meeting with a lot of resistance.
Poverty Index and the Impact of the Migrant Crisis on GDP
This is why the violence of this phase (on June 10th other armed clashes caused 7 deaths and 28 injuries) seems to be rather attributable to a reactionary oligarchy that wants to maintain the status quo in a country where the poverty rate is second in South America only to Venezuela and Argentina, oscillating between 30 and 40%, with extreme poverty affecting 10-12% of the population. The country now also has to face the Trump's tough anti-immigration policies: 200.000 Colombians live in the US and they are practically all illegal, but the money they send home represents almost 3% of Colombia's GDP, a value that is now at risk due to the arrests and repatriations ordered by the White House. However, Petro first reacted by responding harshly to Trump, and then by trying new ways to safeguard an economy that has always been too tied to the United States and the dollar. The alternative today is called the Silk Road and therefore China, which has now become the reference partner of many South American countries, starting with Brazil. At the appeal of the Belt and Road Initiative the only thing missing was practically Bogota, which however finally formally joined a few weeks ago, greatly irritating its historic – but now hostile – North American partner.
The new axis with China
South America has cashed in on the Chinese President Xi Jinping the promise of 10 billion in investments for the development of Latin America and the Caribbean, and Washington did not take it well: "The United States will vigorously oppose recent projects and upcoming disbursements by the Inter-American Development Bank and other international financial institutions to state-owned and government-controlled companies in Colombia," the White House wrote in X. In short, Gustavo Petro, despite his more than commendable reformist intentions, finds himself between two fires: the international standoff with Trump and growing internal tensions, due to a war with drug trafficking that has not yet effectively ended.
