Horacio Serpa

On 28 October 2007 Serpa was elected Governor of the Department of Santander by popular vote in the regional elections. He took office on 1 January 2008.

On 12 March 2006 Serpa was selected as candidate for the Colombian Liberal Party for the presidency of Colombia.

After the creation of the new constitution Serpa continued as President of Liberal Directorate in Santander Department and President of the Central Politics Commission of the Liberal Party. He was then prospect for presidential candidate in 1998, but was shaded by Ernesto Samper. Serpa was then elected National Director of the Liberal party for the period 1998 to 1999. During the government of Álvaro Uribe, Serpa was appointed ambassador of Colombia to the Organization of American States (OAS) and he also disputed the presidential bids of 2002 and 2006.

In the 1994 elections, Serpa became Debate Chief of Samper's presidential campaign and this time Samper was elected president of Colombia. On 20 June 1994, the opposing presidential candidate Andrés Pastrana then made public the Narcocassettes a series of telephone recordings in which members of the Cali drug cartel mainly journalist Alberto Giraldo talked with Gilberto and Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela regarding the financing of the Samper campaign for the presidency.

During the government of Virgilio Barco, Serpa was appointed Minister of Government in which he collaborated in setting a demobilization timetable for the EPL, the PRT and the Quintín Lame Movement. In 1992 under the government of César Gaviria Serpa led the failed negotiation attempts with the ELN guerrillas in Tlaxcala, Mexico.

Serpa was later elected to the National Constituent Assembly in 1991 in which he shared a collegiate presidency with Antonio Navarro Wolff (former member of the M-19 guerrillas) and Álvaro Gómez Hurtado (representative of the Conservative Party) to create the Colombian Constitution of 1991.

This election was won by Álvaro Uribe by a majority vote of half plus one vote, which according to the 1991 Constitution made a secondary election unnecessary. After these negative results for his political career Serpa said that he would never run for the presidency ever again. A few years later he changed his position and after quitting his post as ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), he decided to run again for the presidency. In 2005 he was appointed vice-president of the Socialist International.

In the Chamber of Representatives, Serpa became President of the Accusations Commission and President of the Congress of the Republic Plan Commission. In 1985 Serpa ran for the senate and was elected. In 1998 Serpa was appointed Inspector General of Colombia. He also served as Minister of Government, Minister of Interior, Presidential Peace Advisor and Ministry Delegate in Presidential Functions during the Liberal presidencies of Virgilio Barco (1986–1990) and Ernesto Samper (1994–1998).

In 1981 Serpa met Ernesto Samper Pizano, who was working as debate chief of Alfonso López Michelsen's second presidential campaign and became good friends. For the presidential campaign of 1990 Samper became a candidate and Serpa collaborated with his efforts in the Santander Department, his region of influence, while being the leader of his movement: the FILA. But Samper lost the elections.

In the legislative branch Serpa served as councilman for the town of Barrancabermeja and later as National Chamber of Representatives member representing Santander Department as replacement for congressman Rogelio Ayala in 1974. Serpa was re-elected for the periods of 1978 and 1982 under a movement founded by him, the Authentic Liberal Leftist Front (Frente de Izquierda Liberal Auténtico, FILA) aligned with the official Liberal party.

Serpa concentrated his political efforts in the Magdalena medio (Middle Magdalena Region), a convulsed region in which the ELN guerrilla was born. In 1970 Serpa was appointed Mayor of Barrancabermeja by Alfonso Gómez Gómez and later became Secretary of Education for the Santander Department.

Horacio Serpa Uribe (4 January 1943 – 31 October 2020) was a Colombian lawyer, politician and Senator. Serpa ran as the Colombian Liberal Party candidate for President on three occasions; in 1998, 2002, and 2006. He previously served as congressman for Santander as Senator, Inspector General of Colombia, president of the National Constituent Assembly, Minister of the Interior, and as Ambassador to the Organization of American States. He was also involved in the 8000 process scandal in which money from the Cali Cartel entered the presidential campaign of Liberal candidate Ernesto Samper. In 2007 Serpa ran for the governorship of Santander Department and was elected on 28 October in the regional elections.