The leader of Colombia’s largest guerrilla movement, which has been converted into a political party after signing a peace deal with the government, will seek the country’s presidency in the May 2018 elections.
The leader declared his intention at a news conference broadcast live by Radio Caracol on Wednesday.
The candidacy of Rodrigo Londono, also known as Timochenko, was announced by the Common Alternative Revolutionary Force – the new name of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the media said.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria. NAN, the new party and the former guerrilla movement are known by the abbreviation FARC.
As a left-wing guerrilla movement, the FARC waged a 52-year military conflict against the government, until a peace deal was signed on Nov. 24, 2016.
About 7,000 members of the FARC have subsequently handed their weapons over to the UN.
The FARC party will contest both the parliamentary elections in March and the presidential elections in May.
“Ordinary people and all those who dream of a new fatherland will have their own representatives and can count with a political alternative,” Luciano Marin said at the news conference.
Marin, the chief negotiator for the FARC during the four-year peace process in Cuba, will be the new party’s top candidate for the Senate.
The government’s chief negotiator in the peace process, Humberto Calle, said Londono had no chances of becoming president, because the FARC remained unpopular among people accusing it of atrocities.
The peace agreement guarantees the FARC at least five seats in the Chamber of Representatives and at least five seats in the Senate.