Colombian senator and presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay was shot at an event in Bogota, with his condition still unclear.

The 39-year-old candidate from the opposition Centro Democratico party was taken to a medical center in the Colombian capital, Semana reported. Online footage of the shooting showed Uribe’s head and back covered in blood, the outlet reported.

The gunman has been detained, Bogota Mayor Carlos Galan said on X.

The shooting drew immediate condemnation from President Gustavo Petro’s government, which reiterated its commitment to the protection of all political leaders.

Uribe is the grandson of former President Julio César Turbay and the son of slain journalist Diana Turbay. He was campaigning in Fontibon, a popular neighborhood in west Bogota.

“Violence can never be the way forward. I strongly condemn the attack against Miguel Uribe,” Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia said on X. “I sincerely hope he is safe and out of danger.”

Uribe has leaned hard into law and order, economic stability, and a pro-business platform in his Senate role — where he won more votes than any other candidate in 2022.

A close ally of former President Álvaro Uribe, he has long warned that Colombia is backsliding into violence.

“They are dragging us back to a past of violence we don’t want to return to,” Miguel Uribe said on June 5 at a banking conference in Cartagena. “Without security there is nothing: physical safety, public order, legal certainty, clear rules, institutional stability, and rule of law.”

Educated at Colombia’s Universidad de los Andes and Harvard’s Kennedy School, Uribe has fiercely criticized Petro’s leftist reforms.

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Source: Mint.