Colombian presidential election, 2002

Colombian presidential election, 2002

← 1998 26 May 2002 2006 →
Turnout	46.5% 12.5%
Nominee Álvaro Uribe Horacio Serpa Party Colombia First Liberal Party Home state Antioquia Santander Running mate Francisco Santos Calderón José Gregorio Hernández Galindo Popular vote 5,862,655 3,514,779 Percentage 54.0% 32.4%
Results by Department
President before election Andrés Pastrana Arango Conservative Party Elected President Álvaro Uribe Colombia First

Andrés Pastrana Arango
Conservative Party

Álvaro Uribe
Colombia First

Presidential elections were held in Colombia on 26 May 2002.Álvaro Uribe, the candidate of the recently-created Colombia First movement, was elected, receiving 54% of the vote by the first round. Uribe took office on 7 August.

In 1998, Andrés Pastrana, the Colombian Conservative Party's candidate was elected to the presidency on a platform of holding peace negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas. After over three years of tortuous dialogues - while the conflict continued unabated in the rest of the country - Pastrana announced on February 20, 2002 that he was ending the peace process with the FARC. Over this complicated period, public opinion radicalized in favour of a strong military strategy to end the Colombian armed conflict.

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.