Candidate: Antanas Mockus Sivickas
Antanas Mockus was born March 25, 1952 in Bogotá, Colombia. He has a BA from Bogotá's National University, a Masters in mathematics from Frances' Dijon University, and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the Paris XIII University. In 1995, after an atypical campaign, Mockus (whose surname is of Lithuanian origin) was elected mayor of Bogotá. He stepped down in 1997 to consider a run in the 1998 presidential elections. He was re-elected in 2001 and served until 2003. He was a popular mayor, getting credit for improving the quality of life in Bogotá and managing the city's finances transparently and honestly. In 2000 Mockus founded the Visionary Party oriented towards "social mobility, respect and love of life, and sacred use of public resources."

Mockus' running mate is María Isabel Patiño, whose background combines academia, business and Bogotá city government.

PROPOSALS

Economy
"The state must maintain and create favorable conditions so that entrepreneurs and workers generate wealth."

Relations with the United States
Mockus has said that Colombia's foreign policy currently gives the United States a "privileged position," and while he does not propose to change that radically, he would do more to promote integration among Latin American countries. Mockus favors the Free Trade Agreement with the United States.

Paramilitary demobilization and reintegration
"Among the most serious problems that demobilized people face are a lack of government guarantees in issues such as training and labor options. It seems that the majority of demobilized people don't have either a job or sufficient support to start up a business, and a lot of them have difficulties living in civilian society. The key is that the state must show leadership of reinsertion programs, the leadership can't be in the hands of those who once were leaders of armed groups. Instead of a new "war tax," reinsertion must be financed through cooperation among national, departmental, and municipal entities with international assistance."

Security
Mockus views cultural change as key to resolving problems like security. "The fundamental objective on the security policy is to protect life. There are 66 deaths for every 100,000 inhabitants in Colombia. Of those 64% correspond to homicides and 18.4% traffic accidents. 27% of homicides correspond to the armed conflict. For this reason the security policy must not center on national security and threats like terrorism and subversion, but also must focus on citizen security. It also must focus on strengthening democracy, crime prevention, and education in safe conduct, conflict resolution, trust, solidarity and cooperation."

Ethnic and Sexual Minorities
"It's not enough to respect free development of personality and individual autonomy to make these minorities rights effective. Let's promulgate a law that recognizes the legitimacy of the different types of families that exist in this country."

Candidate: Horacio Serpa Uribe
Horacio Serpa was born January 4, 1943 in Bucaramanga, Santander. He majored in Law and Political Science at Barranquilla's Atlantic University. He served as a judge in various towns of Santander from 1966 to 1970. From 1971 to 1974 he served as director of the National Commerce Federation (FENALCO), director of Family Welfare Services and guest professor at Harvard and Cambridge Universities. From 1974 to 1991 he served as town councilman in Barrancabermeja, Bucaramanga and other municipalities. He was a senator as well as vice president of the senate. From 1991 to 1997 he was mayor of Barrancabermeja, Secretary of Education, and Minister of the Interior. He ran unsuccessfully for president against Andrés Pastrana in 1998 (though he received the largest vote in the first round) and against Álvaro Uribe in 2002. In 2003, Uribe named Serpa his ambassador to the OAS.

Serpa's running mate is Iván Marulanda, a longtime Liberal Party politician.

PROPOSALS

Peace
Serpa supports "intermediate dialogue with armed groups over the bases and conditions for a political negotiation. This dialogue won't be, for the illegal armed groups, a tactical means of strengthening themselves." Serpa favors a hostage-release / prisoner exchange agreement with the FARC as soon as possible.

Economy
Serpa supports a stronger welfare state. "Our commitment consists in realizing all legislative and administrative actions necessary for Colombia to build, according to the Constitution, a social security system that assures all Colombians efficient provision of health service, pensions and insurance for all workers against the loss of income caused by unemployment." He also plans to focus on equality in education and housing opportunities.

Foreign Policy
"Our political platform concerning international policy will insist on multilateralism, unrestricted respect for international law, compliance with international treaties and non-intervention in other countries' internal affairs. We will support the working order of the International Criminal Court and the tightening of the Inter-American system as well as the Inter-American Democratic Charter."

Relations with the United States
Relations between Serpa and the U.S. government have traditionally been chilly. This is largely because Serpa, as interior minister, was a fierce defender of President Ernesto Samper (1994-98), who lost his U.S. visa due to allegations that he took campaign funding from the Cali drug cartel. Serpa opposes the Free Trade Agreement (TLC). He is a frequent critic of Plan Colombia.

Candidate: Carlos Gaviria Díaz
Carlos Gaviria was born May 8, 1937 in Bogotá, Colombia. He graduated from the University of Antioquia in 1961, and studied law at Harvard Law School from 1970 to 1971. His background is laregly academic, as a scholar of law and human rights. From 1993 to 2001 he was a justice on Colombia's Constitutional Court (part of the country's Supreme Court). He was one of the top vote-getting candidates for the Senate in 2002, where he served until 2006.

Gaviria is the first presidential candidate in many years from a single unified independent leftist party, combining many previous progressive movements and splinter parties. He suprised many by defeating well-known Senator Antonio Navarro, a former leader of the M-19 guerrillas, in the Alternative Democratic Pole's March 2006 primary. Surveys now indicate that Gaviria is running a distant second to Uribe. His standing in the polls has more than doubled since March to about 20 percent; most of these gains have been at the expense of Liberal Party candidate Horacio Serpa.

Gaviria's running mate is Patricia Lara, a prominent journalist and author.

PROPOSALS

Peace
"We recognize the existence of social and armed conflict within our country. We urge political parties, organizations and social movements, businesspeople, peasant organizations, indigenous people and other social groups to work together to build a dialogue policy with the armed groups. We will demand that all the armed sectors respect the civil population, and we will strive for humanitarian agreements between the state and the armed groups. We will also adopt a national policy to overcome the humanitarian crisis that the country is going through, focusing especially on the areas that suffer displacement and confinement."

Security
According to the Colombian newsweekly Cambio, "Instead of Plan Patriota and Democratic Security, he will enact a plan to bring state institutions to the entire country, and to attack the causes of the conflict."

Drug Policy
"We will debate decriminalization of the production and consumption of narcotics, and we will lead an initiative in Congress. We will create cultural strategies and public health strategies to prevent drug consumption. We will attack the supply of narcotics by providing different production alternatives for peasants."

Economy
Gaviria proposes a large state role in the economy, including increased protectionism. "We seek recovery of the social, cultural and productive role of land by seeking a major boost in food productivity, thereby guaranteeing nutritional sovereignty and self-sufficiency; we will restrict imports of agricultural products that can be produced in Colombia; establish stable prices guaranteed by the state; control costs of agricultural inputs and other production expenses; create sufficient economic credits for campesinos; and respect and enlarge lands belonging collectively to campesinos, indigenous and black communities. We will also give a boost to national industry and support the creation of small and medium businesses; and we will protect communities' work by strengthening national productivity and internal marketing, and restricting imports of products not made in Colombia. We propose to strengthen unemployment insurance and subsidies."

Foreign Policy
"We demand and will carry out the principle of national self-determination. We will stimulate relations with different countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, the European Union, Africa and countries from the Pacific. We will support the process of alternative integration of the Americas, linking the South American community of nations. A main focus is economic sovereignty with regard to multilateral organisms like the Word Bank and International Monetary Fund."

Relations with the United States
Gaviria strongly opposes Plan Colombia and fumigation of illicit crops. "We will remove U.S. military bases from Colombia and demand that all foreign troops exit Colombian territory." Gaviria opposes the Free Trade Agreement with the United States.