Roy Barreras

Last updated

Claudia González
(m. 2023)
[1]
Roy Barreras
Roy Barreras.jpg
Colombian Ambassador to the United Kingdom
Assumed office
7 December 2023
Children5
Alma mater University of Valle
Universidad Nacional de Colombia
Alfonso X El Sabio University
ProfessionMedical doctor
Politician

Roy Leonardo Barreras Montealegre (born 27 November 1963) is a Colombian politician and 2018 presidential candidate, he had served as senator from 2010 to 2023 and President of the Senate of Colombia from July 2022 to May 2023. In addition to senator, Barreras served as chairman of former governing party, the Union Party for the People. He entered politics in 2006 when he was elected as a member of the Chamber of Representatives. [2]

Contents

Early life

Roy Barreras was born into a humble family in Cali, Colombia. His grandparents were from Spain, and fled to Colombia during the Spanish Civil War. His mother was from the countryside, her own family displaced during the Colombian conflict, and his father a medical doctor who was forced to travel far from home for extended periods as part of his profession. Barreras struggled during his childhood with bullying from his classmates, working odd jobs including as a taxi driver and an assistant in a bakery. He eventually followed in his father's footsteps and became a medical doctor, working for more than two decades in various parts of Colombia. [3]

Political career

Barreras was elected to congress for the first time in 2006, and has succeeded in each of his re-election campaigns since. In 2011, he was elected to head the congressional Peace Commission, and has been a strong proponent of the Colombian peace process. On 14 June 2017, Senator Barreras officially began his 2018 presidential campaign with a letter to constituents that was published in La Semana. [4]

Barreras was a supporter of former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, also of the Partido de la U. Senator Barreras is considered a centrist, and his policy positions reflect his complicated upbringing. His reputation as a politician that is tough on crime has endeared him to conservatives (right wing), including tougher sentences for child abusers and stronger laws against drunk driving. He also has the support of liberals (left wing) for his advocacy for LGBT parenting and the rights of LGBT parents to adopt children in Colombia. [5]

However, it is Senator Barreras' ardent support for Colombian peace process and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos that have been his defining attributes as both a senator and presidential candidate. Barreras has accused those who oppose the peace process of being populists whose rhetoric could do lasting damage to peace in the country. [5] Barreras lost in the first round of the 2022 presidential elections that eventually saw Gustavo Petro of the Historic Pact for Colombia party elected to the presidency.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colombian Conservative Party</span> Right-wing political party in Colombia

The Colombian Conservative Party is a conservative political party in Colombia. The party was formally established in 1849 by Mariano Ospina Rodríguez and José Eusebio Caro.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Union Party for the People</span> Colombian political party

The Union Party for the People, or Party of the U, is a liberal political party in Colombia. The Party is led by former president Juan Manuel Santos.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Juan Manuel Santos</span> President of Colombia from 2010 to 2018

Juan Manuel Santos Calderón is a Colombian politician who was the President of Colombia from 2010 to 2018. He was the sole recipient of the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Humberto De la Calle</span> Colombian lawyer and politician

Humberto de la Calle Lombana is a Colombian lawyer and politician. He served as Vice President of Colombia from 1994 to 1997. De La Calle served in the cabinet as Interior Minister under two Presidents, Andrés Pastrana and César Gaviria. He also served as Ambassador to Spain and the United Kingdom. After 2003, De La Calle worked at his own Law firm which specialises in advising and representing international clients in Colombia. In October 2012 he was appointed by President Juan Manuel Santos as the chief negotiator in the peace process with the FARC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piedad Córdoba</span> Colombian lawyer and politician (1955–2024)

Piedad Esneda Córdoba Ruiz was a Colombian lawyer and politician who served as a senator from 1994 to 2010. A Liberal Party politician, she also served as a member of the Chamber of Representatives of Colombia for Antioquia from 1992 to 1994.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Germán Vargas Lleras</span> Vice President of Colombia from 2014 to 2017

Germán Vargas Lleras is a Colombian politician who recently served as Vice President of Colombia under President Juan Manuel Santos Calderón. A member of the Radical Change political party, he served four consecutive terms in the Senate, having been elected in 1994. German Vargas also served in the Cabinet as the Minister of Interior and then as the Minister of Housing, City and Territory. He was elected Vice President of Colombia in 2014, running alongside Juan Manuel Santos who was seeking re-election for a second term as President. On 15 March 2017, Vargas Lleras resigned as Vice President in order to be eligible to run for President in the 2018 presidential elections. He finished in fourth place.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2010 Colombian presidential election</span>

Presidential elections were held in Colombia in 2010. They took place under a two-round system, with an initial vote held on 30 May and a second poll held three weeks later on 20 June. A referendum proposal that would have allowed incumbent President Álvaro Uribe the opportunity to run for a third term was rejected by the Constitutional Court of Colombia in a 7–2 ruling on 26 February 2010. Because no candidate received a majority of the votes cast in the 30 May poll, the candidates with the two highest vote totals competed in a runoff election on 20 June: Juan Manuel Santos of the liberal-conservative Social Party of National Unity which unites supporters of former President Uribe, and Antanas Mockus from the Green Party. Santos won the election with 69% of the votes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rafael Pardo Rueda</span> Colombian politician

Rafael Pardo Rueda is a Colombian politician. A Liberal party politician and economist, he has previously served as the 1st Minister of Labour of Colombia serving in the Administration of President Juan Manuel Santos Calderón, Minister of National Defence, and was elected Senator of Colombia for the 2002-2006 legislative period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. J. Rendón</span> Venezuelan political consultant and activist

Juan José Rendón Delgado, known professionally as J. J. Rendón, is a Venezuelan political consultant, psychologist, and political activist, known for being the one who has directed and won the most electoral campaigns. He specializes in crisis resolution and is a human rights activist. He is a political asylee in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2014 Colombian presidential election</span>

Presidential elections were held in Colombia on 25 May 2014. Since no candidate received 50% of the vote in the first round, a run-off between the two candidates with the most votes took place three weeks later on 15 June 2014. According to the official figures released by the National Registry office, as of 22 May 2014 32,975,158 Colombians were registered and entitled to vote in the 2014 presidential election, including 545,976 Colombians resident abroad. Incumbent president Juan Manuel Santos was allowed to run for a second consecutive term. In the first round, Santos and Óscar Iván Zuluaga of the Democratic Center were the two highest-polling candidates and were the contestants in the 15 June run-off. In the second round, Santos was re-elected president, gaining 51% of the vote compared with 45% for Zuluaga.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Óscar Iván Zuluaga</span> Colombian politician and economist (born 1959)

Óscar Iván Zuluaga Escobar is a Colombian politician and economist who was the Democratic Center's nominee for President of Colombia in the 2014 election. He won the most votes in the first round of the election and but went on to lose to the incumbent Juan Manuel Santos Calderon in the second round.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2018 Colombian presidential election</span> Presidential election held in Colombia

Presidential elections were held in Colombia on 27 May 2018. As no candidate received a majority of the vote, the second round of voting was held on 17 June. Incumbent president Juan Manuel Santos was ineligible to seek a third term. Iván Duque, a senator, defeated Gustavo Petro, former mayor of Bogotá, in the second round. Duque's victory made him one of the youngest individuals elected to the presidency, aged 42. His running mate, Marta Lucía Ramírez, was the first woman elected to the vice presidency in Colombian history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2016 Colombian peace agreement referendum</span>

The Colombian peace agreement referendum was held on 2 October 2016, aiming to ratify the final agreement on the termination of the Colombian conflict between the Colombian government and the FARC guerillas. It failed, with 50.2% voting against it and 49.8% voting in favor. Approval of the referendum was taken for granted in Colombia prior to the vote based on opinion polls. However, the 'No' option ended up winning by a narrow margin. Explanations for the surprising "No" victory fell along the similar ideological lines of Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the Brexit referendum, both also held in 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Juan Fernando Cristo</span> Colombian lawyer and politician

Juan Fernando Cristo Bustos is a Colombian lawyer and politician, who was a Colombian Senator from 1998-2014 Minister of the Interior from 2014-2017. In this capacity, he played a key role in negotiating and implementing the peace accords signed with FARC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claudia López</span> Colombian politician (born 1970)

Claudia Nayibe López Hernández is a Colombian politician. She was a Senator of the Republic of Colombia and was the vice-presidential candidate in the 2018 presidential election for the Green Alliance party. In October 2019, she was elected mayor of Bogotá, the first woman and as well the first openly LGBT person to be elected to this position.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iván Duque</span> President of Colombia from 2018 to 2022

Iván Duque Márquez is a Colombian politician and lawyer who served as the president of Colombia from 2018 to 2022. He was elected as the candidate from the Democratic Centre Party in the 2018 Colombian presidential election. Backed by his mentor, former president and powerful senator Álvaro Uribe, he was elected despite having been relatively unknown a year before the election. He ran on a platform that included opposing Juan Manuel Santos' peace agreement with the FARC guerrilla group. After Duque's term came to an end, he was succeeded by Gustavo Petro on 7 August 2022, after Petro won the runoff round in the 2022 Colombian presidential election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colombia Justa Libres</span> Political party in Colombia

Colombia Justa Libres is a right-wing Colombian political party founded in 2017 that groups the majority of evangelical denominations in the country together. This includes, among others, Assemblies of God, Foursquare Church, Peace Mission to the Nations, and Spring of Eternal Life. During the 2018 Colombian parliamentary election, four of its members were elected to the Congress of Colombia. After the 2022 legislative election, the party formed the Nos Une Colombia coalition with the MIRA. It has the slogan "Let's do it together!" and a youth wing known as "RUGE!".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Presidency of Juan Manuel Santos</span> Colombian presidencial administration from 2010 to 2018

Juan Manuel Santos's term as the 32nd president of Colombia began with his first inauguration on August 7, 2010, and ended on August 7, 2018. Santos, a center-right leader from Bogotá, took office after a landslide victory over the leftist leader. Antanas Mockus in the 2010 presidential election. Four years later, in the 2014 presidential election, he narrowly defeated the Democratic Center candidate Óscar Iván Zuluaga to win re-election. Santos was succeeded by right-wing leader Iván Duque, who won the 2018 presidential election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carlos Fernando Galán</span> Colombian politician

Carlos Fernando Galán Pachón is a Colombian politician and journalist. The youngest son of the presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán Sarmiento, assassinated in 1989, and brother of the senator Juan Manuel Galán. Galán has been a Bogotá Councilor and a Senator of the Republic of Colombia, a position he resigned after resigning from the Radical Change Party due to ideological differences, the main of them, the support that his party decided to give Iván Duque for the 2018 presidential elections.

Ernesto Macías Tovar is a Colombian politician and social communicator. He was councilman of Garzón between 1980 and 1982. In the 2014 legislative elections he was elected Senator of the Republic for the Democratic Center, in this position he took office on July 20, 2014. He was President of the Senate of the Republic from 2018 to 2019.

References

  1. "El matrimonio de Roy: datos e invitados". elespectador.com. 17 July 2023. Retrieved 4 October 2023.
  2. "Roy Barreras :: Sitio Oficial - quien soy". roybarreras.com. Archived from the original on 6 February 2010. Retrieved 13 January 2022.
  3. Roy Barreras en Confesiones. Confesiones. Retrieved 10 July 2017.
  4. "Con una carta Roy Barreras oficializa su intención de ser candidato presidencial". La Semana. 14 June 2017. Retrieved 10 July 2017.
  5. 1 2 "Candidate Profile: Roy Barreras". Colombia Focus. 10 July 2017. Retrieved 10 July 2017.
Political offices
Preceded by President of the Senate
2022–2023
Succeeded by
Preceded by President of the Senate
2012-2013
Succeeded by
Order of precedence
Preceded by
Cristina Pardo
as former President of the Constitutional Court
Order of precedence of Colombia
as former President of the Senate
Succeeded byas former President of the Chamber