Almost 7 years after being ousted as a senator by the Judicial Department due to her collaboration with the FARC terrorist group. Piedad Cordoba announced confidently today that she will campaigning to be President of Colombia in 2018.
Ms. Cordoba, who was previously a part of Colombia’s Liberal party, has continued to be an outspoken critic of former president Álvaro Uribe. She was stripped of her seat twice, first in 2005 and then again in 2010, the latter resulting in an 18-year ban from holding public office. The ban, however, was overturned by the Colombian Supreme Court in 2016.
Cordoba is an example of the divide between liberals and conservatives in Colombia. Many liberals in the country view Cordoba as a heroine, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 and kidnapped by right-wing groups in 199. She is the founder of the “Poder Ciudadano Siglo XXI” (21st Century Citizen Power), an extreme left-wing movement within the liberal party.
However in 2007, Cordoba attended a symposium in Mexico City that was supported by terrorist organizations within Colombia, including the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN).
Cordoba has also previously declared that “the progressive governments of Latin America should break their diplomatic relations with Colombia” and that Álvaro Uribe was a “paramilitary”. Files captured during a FARC raid in April 2008 showed that Cordoba was actively collaborating with subversive terrorist groups within the country.
Cordoba did not indicate which party she will represent in the 2018 election. That election is expected to be the first in which a candidate from the FARC terrorist group, now integrated into the government through their recent treaty, will participate in a presidential election.
Colombia has moved significantly to the left since Álvaro Uribe’s presidential term expired in 2010. In that time, communist party member and former M-19 terrorist Gustavo Petro was elected as mayor of Bogotá, and the FARC terrorist group, whose numbers dwindled from 20,000 to under 8,000 during former President Uribe’s terms in office, won very favorable terms in a peace treaty with the government including the creation of special districts where FARC representatives are expected to win office in the country’s congress.
According to Cordoba, “There´s no doubt that are new times coming to Colombia. We are in a historic period nothing will be the same. The old is starting to give up to the new.”
