Former President of Colombia Alvaro Uribe will run for Senate in the upcoming 2026 elections. The announcement was made by Gabriel Vallejo Chujfi, President of the Democratic Center, the conservative party founded by former president Uribe back in 2014.
“The party understands this is a challenge, and we hope to have 25 senators, among other reasons because, if judicial matters allow it, Alvaro Uribe will be number 25 on the list,” said Vallejo Chujfi.
Alvaro Uribe, 2026 candidate for a seat in Colombia’s Senate
Vallejo said that former President Uribe shared his decision with them a few days ago. “For the party it is an honor; President Uribe is fully committed to Colombia,” said the Democratic Center president.
The conservative Democratic Center will present a total of 25 candidates in the 2026 Senate elections, including former president Uribe.
“We want to tell the country that the Democratic Center will have the enormous responsibility of leading the list, which will help contribute to Colombia’s recovery,” Vallejo said, adding that “In the coming days, meetings will be held to begin defining the composition of the Senate list, as several people want to run in the upcoming congressional elections.”
Alvaro Uribe’s candidacy, however, is still on hold. The former president’s trial is ongoing, as his appeal has yet to be decided. Back on On Aug. 1, judge Sandra Heredia found former President Uribe guilty of witness tampering and procedural fraud, sentencing him to 12 years of house arrest, with immediate effect, and imposing a fine of 3.4 billion Colombian pesos (approximately US$840,000).
Three weeks later, in a turn of events, the Superior Court of Bogota ordered Uribe’s immediate release to “protect the fundamental right to individual liberty of citizen Alvaro Uribe Velez” until the appeals chamber issues a ruling on his house arrest sentence.
Uribe’s legal situation, however, must be resolved before 2025 if he intends to run in the elections.
Uribe: an unavoidable force in Colombia’s politics
“This conviction, despite my age, encourages me to keep fighting for Colombia and to denounce these anomalies, which affect me today, as long as the process of consolidating the neo-communist dictatorship continues, a process that will affect other compatriots,” Uribe declared following his sentence back in August.
Alvaro Uribe is the most influential political figure of 21st-century in Colombia. President from 2002 to 2008, the political movement he launched, Uribismo, has defined and polarized Colombian politics to this day. After his presidency, Uribe remained a central figure in Colombian politics. The three presidents who followed him — Juan Manuel Santos, Ivan Duque, and Gustavo Petro — have at times aligned with, distanced themselves from, claimed, or openly opposed his legacy, but all, in one way or another, have had to contend with it in their discourse.
In addition to his two presidential terms, he also served four terms as senator. From 1986 to 1994 and from 2014 to 2020. On Aug. 18, 2020, Uribe irrevocably resigned from his Senate seat so that his judicial case would leave the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, which had ordered house arrest against him, and instead be handled by the ordinary justice system.