By Luis Jaime Acosta
BOGOTA, May 28 (Reuters) - Right-wing Colombian lawyer and senator Paloma Valencia is running to become her country's first female president in a Sunday presidential contest, promising to strengthen security and revive the economy, which she says have deteriorated under the current leftist government.
Valencia, 48, a scion of two powerful conservative families, is backed by former President Alvaro Uribe, who secured major victories against leftist guerrilla groups in the 2000s,
and remains influential despite an ongoing legal case in which he was found guilty of fraud and bribery, convictions later overturned on appeal. Uribe has denied wrongdoing, calling the case a political persecution.
“Uribe is like a father to me. I never make mistakes when it comes to loyalties. I want to take everything that worked in President Uribe’s government and do it again,” Valencia, who has recently slipped in polls to third, said at a recent campaign event. “I’m going to copy Uribe, who got Colombia back on track.”
Valencia is one of the leading candidates in the May 31 first-round vote to replace President Gustavo Petro, who is barred from seeking reelection. If no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote, a runoff will be held in June.
One of the most high-profile opposition leaders in Congress, she hails from Cauca province, one of the regions hardest hit by violence and a six-decade armed conflict that has killed more than 450,000.
She has criticized the 2016 peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas, as well as Petro, who has unsuccessfully sought deals with other illegal armed groups.
“With me there will be no talks with the ELN, nor with the FARC, nor with the so-called Gaitanista Army. We will reactivate all arrest warrants and pursue them and hunt them down to bring them to prison,” Valencia said at a recent event in Bogota, referencing other guerrilla and criminal groups.
POLITICAL HEIRESS
Valencia's paternal grandfather was conservative former President Guillermo Leon Valencia, while her maternal grandfather founded a prestigious university.
She holds a master’s degree in creative writing from New York University and was a newspaper columnist and a radio commentator before entering politics.
Her first electoral bid was in 2006, when she failed to win a congressional seat, but she has been a senator for Uribe's Democratic Center party since 2014, backing laws to support sugar producers, formalize small businesses and reduce working hours.
She is married to academic Tomas Rodriguez and has a young daughter.
(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta, Editing by Julia Symmes Cobb and Chiara Rodriquez)
