The attack on Miguel Uribe puts Colombia’s presidential race on hold.

Anxiety takes hold of the emerging presidential race in Colombia. The attack on Saturday against opposition candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay, who remains in critical condition in a Bogotá clinic, has led some campaigns to suspend their activities, citing a lack of minimum security guarantees. Aspirants such as former mayor Claudia López, former senator David Luna, and former minister Mauricio Lizcano took this step. Politicians from various parties have reported being threatened. Meanwhile, nine independent and opposition parties decided not to attend a meeting on Monday to discuss the security conditions for candidates, called by the government of Gustavo Petro, as a way to express their discontent. They stated that they do not recognize the government as a guarantor of an electoral process that has only just begun and has a year left.

Opposition politicians such as conservative Efraín Cepeda, the president of the Senate who has been repeatedly insulted by Petro, and former president César Gaviria, leader of the Liberal Party, as well as groups like Cambio Radical and Centro Democrático, to which Uribe Turbay belongs, declined to participate in the Electoral Guarantees Commission, amid criticism of the president. Interior Minister Armando Benedetti defended that it was an institutional, not political, space. “If the parties want to reject our invitations, we will continue to insist and keep inviting them… That is the government’s intention, and it is important to make it clear that our will is to provide security and electoral guarantees to different parties and movements, starting with those registered who will be collecting signatures,” he stated before the meeting. Later, he changed his tone, criticized the absences, and warned that Saturday’s attack could be the first link in several terrorist attacks and assassination attempts, “or a cascade of them.”

The attack shocked the country at a time when independent candidates, who are gathering signatures, were igniting the long presidential race a year before the 2026 elections. This month, López, the former mayor of Bogotá; Luna, who resigned as opposition senator to seek the presidency as an independent; and Lizcano, who was part of Petro’s cabinet until the beginning of the year as the Minister of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), have registered. Another early candidate, former Minister of Finance Mauricio Cárdenas, who is of conservative origin, planned to register this week but decided to delay that initial step. Those who choose this route must collect over 600,000 valid signatures before November 17, usually requiring intense political activity in the streets, which accelerates the campaign.

López, who sent a representative to the Electoral Guarantees Commission, was the first to announce on Sunday that she had decided to cancel her planned tour in the departments of Santander and Norte de Santander, while asking the presidency, the Ministry of Defense, and the National Protection Unit—currently at the center of controversy—for adequate guarantees and security schemes for all candidates. “If this tragedy happens to a presidential candidate in Bogotá, what is happening to social leaders in Catatumbo and Cauca? The best guarantee is a security plan for all Colombians,” she declared on Monday, also insisting on the need to de-escalate the rhetoric, a plea from various sides.

Luna, who resigned from Cambio Radical, also opted to temporarily suspend all political and campaign activities. “I do this mainly in solidarity with Miguel Uribe, his wife María Claudia, and his family,” announced the former senator. “But I also do so with the aim of calling for unity around the defense of democracy. It is essential that we in the country do not allow ourselves to be bent under any circumstances,” he asserted. Additionally, he called for transparency in the investigations and insisted on “the need to disarm language.” Lizcano expressed similar sentiments, suspending all campaign activities for the week. “The radicalization of political debate is leading us down a dark path that we, as a country, must not return to,” said the former director of the Administrative Department of the Presidency under Petro’s government.

To this altered environment is added a wave of complaints from politicians claiming to know of plans to target them or their families. Petro himself stated that both the children of his ministers and his youngest daughter, Antonella, have been threatened. Former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez, founder of Centro Democrático, said that sources from “international intelligence” have informed him of a threat against him. Other candidates, such as right-wing communicator Vicky Dávila or former Medellín mayor Daniel Quintero, have said they have information from confidential sources, which cannot be verified, about criminal plans.

Defense Minister, retired General Pedro Sánchez, offered a reward of 1 billion pesos (around 250,000 dollars) on Monday for anyone providing information that can anticipate and neutralize any threats against the country’s political leaders, regardless of their ideology or party. He also ordered the Armed Forces and the Police to strengthen their capabilities to guarantee peace and security. The government, through the director of the National Police, Carlos Triana, had already announced plans to reinforce protection schemes for presidential candidates—who number in the dozens—as well as for opposition leaders and the families of cabinet members. None of these announcements have managed to calm the atmosphere or reduce the perception that Colombia is sliding back into times of political violence thought to be overcome.