A senator and candidate for the Colombian right -wing opposition in the presidential election next year was shot and injured in Bogota on Saturday, various media reported, while the government denounced a “attack”.
Miguel Uibe, 39, was in critical condition and a person had been arrested, according to the media.
“Violence can never be the way … I sincerely hope that (Uibe) is good and out of danger,” wrote Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia on social networks.
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In a declarationHis party, the Centro Democrato Conservative Party, said that Uribe attended a campaign event when, around 5 p.m., the local time, he was shot.
An attempted assassination on a high -level political figure was not observed in Colombia since the era of the drug lord Pablo Escobar in the early 1990s.
Attorney General Luz Adriana Camargo told Caracol Radio that Uribe was in “intensive care”.
The local media reported that at least one ball struck the senator in the neck or head.
The government of the left president Gustavo Petro said that it had “categorically and forcefully” the attack on Uibe during the campaign event west of the capital.
“This act of violence is an attack not only against his person, but also against democracy, freedom of thought and the legitimate exercise of politics in Colombia,” the presidency said in the press release.
Uibe, a strong critic of Petro, announced last October his intention to present himself in the presidential elections of 2026.
In a statement on Saturday evening, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States “sentenced the assassination of Senator Miguel Uribe as high as possible”.
Rubio called the shooting “A direct threat to democracy and the result of violent left rhetoric from the highest levels of the Colombian government. After seeing the progress of Colombia in recent decades to consolidate security and democracy, he cannot afford to resume days of political violence.