Jorge Eliecer Gaitan (1936)

Jorge Eliécer Gaitán (January 23, 1903 – April 9, 1948) Gaitán was a maverick liberal who cultivated a mass following among the disadvantaged sectors of Colombian society. A former Education Minister (1940) and Labor Minister (1943-44), as mayor of Bogotá (1936) he built a populist movement that attacked the nation’s “oligarchy” and called for Colombia’s moral restitution. His assassination by an unknown assailant in the center of Bogota prompted massive riots throughout the city that became known as bogotazo. The assassination closed the way to centrist and reformist solutions, and led to a sharp acceleration in political violence as Colombia entered the era known simply as La Violencia (1946 – 1964).

Álvaro Uribe Vélez

Álvaro Uribe (July 4, 1952 – ) Uribe campaigned as a dissident liberal who vowed to crush the guerilla movement within Colombia upon his election in 2002. A former Medellín mayor and governor of Antioquia, Uribe embarked on an ambitious plan to manage the internal conflict. With $573 milllion in aid from the United States, Uribe bolstered counternarcotics and counterinsurgency operations. His success against the FARC and ELN won him tremendous support: he pushed through a constitutional amendment permitting reelection, and in May 2006 he triumphed in a landslide, winning 62 percent of the vote.