Senator Iván Cepeda and former Health Minister Carolina Corcho will participate this Sunday in a consultation to define who of the two He will be the presidential candidate in 2026 of the Historical Pact, the leftist coalition that brought President Gustavo Petro to power in 2022.
The winner of this consultation, which in recent weeks has been marked by several legal disputes and resignations, Next March, he will participate in another inter-party campaign of the Frente Amplio in order to reach the first presidential round with a single left-wing candidate. Cepeda, 63-year-old philosopher and politicianhas been a facilitator of the peace process between the Government and the FARC in the 2016 agreement, co-president of the Senate Peace Commission and member of the Government’s negotiating delegation with the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla.
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The senator is the son of Manuel Cepeda Vargas, a member of the Unión Patriótica (UP) party, shot dead in August 1994, when the car he was traveling in was ambushed by hitmen on a street in the Bogotá neighborhood of Mandalay. The UP had been created in 1985 as part of an attempted peace agreement between the then Colombian president, Belisario Betancur (1982-1986), and the FARC guerrilla. However, in the following years that party was the victim of a genocide in which nearly 5,000 of its members were murdered. In recent years, Cepeda has faced former President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010), the most influential right-wing politician of this century in Colombia, on trial for a bribery case in which the left-wing senator was recognized as a victim. Meanwhile, Corcho, who was born in Medellín in 1983, is a doctor and psychiatrist recognized in Colombia for her defense of the right to health.
She was minister of that portfolio between August 2022 and April 2023, in the first months of the Petro Government. In that role, she was surrounded by intense debates and was a reference for both support and criticism of health reform, one of the current president’s flags. What is at stake In addition to choosing the presidential candidatethis Sunday’s day will serve to define the order of the lists of the Historical Pact for the Senate and the House of Representatives. Colombia will hold legislative elections on March 8, 2026 and May 31 will be the first round of the presidential elections, with a second round on June 21 if necessary. Both the National Registry of Civil Status (which organizes the elections) and the National Electoral Council (CNE), in charge of supervising the parties and campaigns, They set October 26 as a consultation date for all political groups.
However, the only one that will go to the polls this Sunday will be the Historical Pact, which includes the Patriotic Union, Human Colombia, Progressive Party, Colombian Communist Party and the Alternative Democratic Pole (PDA). Cepeda and Corcho are endorsed by the Historical Pact. The other parties refused to participate in the consultation. Initially, recognized figures from the left were in the running for this consultation. and also allies of Petro, such as senators María José Pizarro and Gloria Flórez; former ministers Gloria Inés Ramírez and Susana Muhamad; the former director of the Department of Social Prosperity Gustavo Bolívar and the social leader Alí Bantú Ashanti.
Also the former mayor of Medellín Daniel Quintero. But he, like those mentioned above, abandoned the race arguing different reasons, among them the possibility that, if he won, he would not be able to participate in the inter-party election in March. Sunday’s results have legal effects because the winner will be the presidential candidate of the parties that participated in the consultation and the loser will not be able to register later for another party.
President Petro will participate in the appointment to elect the pre-candidate of the Historical Pact and all Colombians who are eligible on the electoral roll will be able to vote, some 39 million people, without having to be a member or affiliate of the party. To facilitate citizen participation, the National Registry enabled more than 20,000 tables throughout the country. Although there will be fewer tables than in presidential, legislative or local elections, it is guaranteed that citizens will be able to vote at their usual polling station.
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EFE.
