Germán Vargas Lleras, former vice president of Colombia during Juan Manuel Santos tenure, has declared in a meeting with Neiva’s politicians that he would strongly consider an alliance with the former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe in the 2018 elections. During the meeting, both Uribe and Vargas met, greeted each other politely, and reportedly stayed in the same hotel.
According to Colombia’s RCN news, Vargas is alarmed at the rhetoric from leftwing activitists such as Gustavo Petro, and the sole purpose of an alliance would be to prevent radical leftist politicians from reaching power. His fear, along with many other center and center-right politicians in Colombia, is that Colombia could become a second Venezuela. RCN quoted Vargas as saying, “that cannot happen“.
Leftwing radical and former M19 terrorist Gustavo Petro has led in some of the early presidential polling for Colombia’s 2018 Presidential Election. Petro, who also served jail time for weapons offenses in the 90’s, was a personal friend of former Venezuelan socialist Hugo Chavez and has spoken in defense of current Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro’s constituent assembly.
