Conservative Party In 2001 the governing coalition – composed of the
Conservative Party and dissident
Liberals – which had carried Pastrana to the presidency in 1998 began looking for a candidate to carry the coalition into the 2002 elections. Former
Vice President and Minister of the Interior
Humberto de La Calle, a dissident Liberal, was approached but he declined, arguing that the candidacy should go to a Conservative. The Minister of Economic Development,
Augusto Ramírez Ocampo, resigned his portfolio to seek the presidency, but he later failed to obtain Conservative support because of his low support in the polls. Following Ramírez Ocampo's withdrawal, the party's president,
Carlos Holguín Sardi organized an internal consultation among the over 16,000 delegates in the national convention. Some members of the party wished to offer the candidacy to
Noemí Sanín (a former Conservative who had run as an independent in the
1998 election, placing third in the first round), but she declined, opting to continue her independent candidacy. As a result, her supporters within the party's ranks decided not to participate in the internal consultation and join her campaign directly. Three candidates registered to participate in the Conservative primary, the favourite and eventual winner by a large margin was
Juan Camilo Restrepo. Restrepo, who had lost the 1998 Conservative candidacy to Pastrana, had later served in Pastrana's cabinet as Minister of Finance (1998-2000), where his austere measures against the economic crisis made him unpopular and led to his appointment as Colombia's ambassador to France. With most of the Conservative party ultimately supporting
Uribe, Restrepo withdrew from the race.
Liberal Party The official candidate of the
Liberal Party was
Horacio Serpa, who had already been the party's candidate in the
1998 election. Despite being a polarizing figure, Serpa entered the election as the favourite.
Álvaro Uribe's independent candidacy Álvaro Uribe, the former Liberal governor of
Antioquia (1995-1997), entered the race as a strong opponent of the peace talks with the FARC, but originally suffered from low name recognition against other better-known candidates. Uribe declined to participate in a Liberal primary, citing the lack of guarantees, and instead launched an independent candidacy (by collecting signatures from voters to win ballot access) with the backing of the
Colombia First (
Primero Colombia) movement. Uribe entered the field taking a hardline position against the peace talks with the FARC, arguing that peace talks should only be held following the cessation of hostilities and terrorist actions.
The left Luis Eduardo Garzón, the first president of the
Central Union of Workers between 1990 and 2001, ran as the candidate of the left-wing
Social and Political Front, later joined by other left-wing parties including the
ANAPO and united under the name
Independent Democratic Pole. His candidacy received a major boost following the left's good results in the
March 2002 congressional elections. ==Campaign==