Former Bogota mayor Enrique Peñalosa and former President Alvaro Uribe met Friday, officializing Uribe’s support for Peñalosa, who in recent polls showed a comfortable lead in his run to become the next mayor of Colombia’s capital.
Uribe has been expressing his support for the former Bogota mayor on several occasions, but before Friday had not personally sat down with Peñalosa.
In the meeting, the two politicians reportedly talked about strategies to assure that Peñalosa wins the October elections.
Uribe told reporters that Peñalosa is “the most prepared person in the world” who deserves a second mandate.
The former president would not answer to questions whether he would take the stage with Peñalosa to further endorse his candidacy.
The former mayor denied that the alliance with Uribe will worsen the crisis within the Green Party of which prominent members already took a distance because of their refusal to be aligned with the former President who increasingly finds himself involved in numerous scandals and criticism over his two administrations.
According to two recent polls, Peñalosa is the most likely to win the October elections. Antanas Mockus, also a former Bogota mayor, runner up in last year’s presidential elections who left the Green Party because of Peñalosa’s flirting with Uribe, is said to be joining the mayoral race soon.
Bogota will take to the polls in October to elect the successor of the suspended mayor Samuel Moreno, who is embroiled in a mayor corruption scandal
