Seven hundred people filled the Cosmos Hotel in Bogotá's Chico III neighbourhood on 7 October for the first summit of a leadership centre created in memory of Miguel Uribe Turbay, the senator and presidential hopeful who was shot at a campaign rally in June 2025 and died two months later, aged 39.
The Miguel Uribe Turbay Centre is run by the late senator's father, Miguel Uribe Londoño, and his wife Delia Jaramillo, with co-founders including Canal 1 president Ramiro Avendaño. Its stated mission is to train young Colombians in values, public service and democratic principles — a project Uribe Londoño says began during the four days his family spent praying at his son's hospital bedside. Uribe Turbay studied at Harvard Kennedy School in 2021-22, and one of his professors there, David King, framed the centre's ethos around five pillars: values, purpose, freedom and democracy, consistency and resolve, and solidarity.
President Abelardo de la Espriella made a surprise appearance and received the centre's first Leadership Award, telling the audience he had promised to abandon his own campaign if Uribe Turbay recovered. De la Espriella went on to win the presidency in June 2026, and has since appointed Uribe Londoño — who ran unsuccessfully for his son's old party's rivals and took just 0.12% of the vote — as Colombia's ambassador to the United Kingdom. Tourism Minister Mauricio Gómez Amín also spoke, and a panel moderated by the senator's sister, Maria Carolina Hoyos, debated what courageous leadership looks like in a polarised country.
The tribute carries heavy family history. Uribe Turbay was the grandson of president Julio César Turbay and the son of journalist Diana Turbay, who was kidnapped in 1990 on the orders of Pablo Escobar and killed during a failed rescue operation. His own killing — by a 14-year-old gunman, the first assassination of a Colombian presidential hopeful since 1990 — remains in the courts. Prosecutors attribute the attack to the FARC dissident group Segunda Marquetalia, and a plea deal has already put Simeón Pérez Marroquín, alias 'El Viejo', behind bars for more than 22 years for coordinating it.
For visitors to Colombia, the story is a window into the country's tense political climate as much as a memorial. The centre's launch coincides with continuing violence: the Ombudsman's Office logged 90 killed social leaders and 77 massacres in the first seven months of 2026 alone. Travellers following Colombian news — especially anyone in Bogotá around political events or anniversaries — should expect commemorations, heightened security at public gatherings and a national conversation about security that shows no sign of fading. The most emotional note of the day came from actress Paola Turbay, the senator's cousin, who recalled a call from him the day before the shooting that never happened: 'It's probably the missed call I've regretted the most in my life.'
Original reporting: The Bogotá Post
