By Margarita Martinez Escallón and Carmen Carolina Garnica, LA SILLA VACÍA, April 23, 2026
(Translated by Eunice Gibson CSN Volunteer Translator)
Admitted the false positives but not political responsibility; denial or silence when faced with the scandals of Uribism. Candidate Paloma Valencia receives a legacy of millions of votes from the followers of Álvaro Uribe and his following of cities and towns who will recognize her as “the one from Uribe”, but also recognize the shadow of the serious scandals that marked his Presidency and the life of this country.
Iván Cepeda mentions this past repeatedly, and it’s even a problem for some from the political center who are accompanying her.
“This candidate joined a party four years after the end of the Uribe administration and doesn’t have so much as a comma in that legacy,” responds Nicolás Umaña, in the name of the Paloma campaign.
These are some of Valencia’s positions regarding the shadows of the ex-President throughout her political career:
She admits there were false positives, but not to her pollical responsibility.
Most of the murders of the 6,402 civilians by Colombia’s Armed Forces in what is known as the “false positives” took place during the Álvaro Uribe administration. The term refers to a directive by the Minister of Defense that made “kills” into a central element in the ratings of effectiveness and there was a constant demand for results from the Armed Forces. The majority of those killed were young men, including some with mental illness, and even fathers who had just gone out to buy a birthday cake.
They were all part of the “body count” that officers must show to obtain leaves, bonuses, and promotions.
“The Uribe administration seems to me to have been really serious in responding to the false positives,” said Valencia in an interview with LA SILLA VACÍA. “More than 70 officers left the service, and many high-ranking officers responsible have been convicted.”
The Democratic Center Party candidate has vacillated in her responses, which have gone from acknowledgement what happened but excusing her boss, defending the legitimacy of the State in spite of how systematic it was and of the dimension of the killings, to blaming Juan Manuel Santos and corrupt officials.
“I’ve never denied the false positives. But it’s very possible that they were a terrible but unintentional effect of a policy intended to reward the effectiveness of the Armed Forces,” she said on Twitter.
Contrary to the facts, she stated that the false positives only took place under then-Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos, whom Uribism considers to be a traitor.
And in spite of the seriousness of the events, she has stated that the State is legitimate, and that “it has always acted to defend the citizens. The actions of corrupt officials are something else.”
She denies the illegal wiretaps by the DAS[1]
The eight years of the Uribe administration were marked by scandals like the illegal wiretaps of members of the opposition, journalists, and judges; they offered payoffs for votes to change the Constitution to permit his re-election, and by the convictions of the DAS Director for being allied with the paramilitaries.
In general, she has kept quiet; occasionally she has denied there were wiretaps and even when there were similar events in other administrations, she has said they should be judged by the same measurement.
In defense of her political mentor, she has said that he didn’t order the illegal wiretaps of the Supreme Court, and in a debate on W RADIO in 2018, she said the North American anti-drug agency, the DEA, (Drug Enforcement Agency) had done it. But she has also gone through some denial, including of the officials convicted for the acts. In 2014, she said on social networks, “there’s no evidence of any Uribist illegal wiretaps. There is evidence that Uribism was illegally wiretapped.”
Part of Uribe’s confidential circle has been convicted of those actions: his Legal Secretary, Edmundo Castillo, the Secretary of the Presidency, Barnardo Moreno, the Director of the Secret Police, then known as the DAS, María Pilar Hurtado, and her Chief of Communications, Cesar Mauricio Velásquez, among others.
She denies the “Yídispolitica” and “Agro Ingreso Seguro”[2]
Yidis Medina, a member of Congress between 2002 and 2006, confessed that she had received “gifts” from Ministers in the then-Uribe administration to help in the passage of the Constitutional amendment that would permit Álvaro Uribe’s re-election. The Ministers of Interior and Health, Sabas Pretelt and Diego Palacio, were convicted in the case.
Regarding those convictions, the Democratic Center candidate has defended their innocence on repeated occasions, which is the same as denying the illegal exchange of benefits offered by the Uribe administration to obtain the necessary votes.
“I’ve been defending the innocence of Andres Felipe Arias, Diego Palacios, and Sabas Pretelt,” she said in 2017, including in the same bag the former Agriculture Minister Arias, who was convicted of providing agricultural subsidies to big ranchers who divided up their properties to obtain the benefits.
Solidarity with Uribe’s brother, convicted of supporting paramilitary activities
Perhaps the case closest to President Uribe’s intimate circle was the conviction of his younger brother, Santiago Uribe, for creating paramilitary groups and for homicide. The Democratic Center candidate fought tooth and nail to defend him. “What great news that Santiago has been absolved. Justice is done after so many years,” she said after the trial court decision.
But last November, after the appellate court’s decision finding him guilty of aggravated criminal conspiracy for organizing paramilitary groups and of homicide, according to Red Mas Noticias, she said she hoped that his extraordinary appeal for reversal would be successful and he would recover his good name.
[1] Administrative Department of Security. This agency was terminated 2011.
[2] Agro Ingreso Seguro was a government program (2007-209) designed to subsidize poor campesinos but it turned into a scandal when it was found that wealthy families were receiving high subsidies. It led to the conviction of the Agriculture Minister.