A Colombian right-wing opposition senator and candidate in next year’s presidential election was shot and wounded in Bogota on Saturday, various media reported, while the government denounced an “attack.”
Miguel Uribe, 39, was in critical condition and one person had been arrested, according to media reports.
“Violence can never be the way… I sincerely hope that (Uribe) is well and out of danger,” Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia wrote on social media.
Gabriel Aponte/Getty Images for Concordia Summit 
In a statement, his party, the Centro Democratico conservative party, said Uribe was attending a campaign event when, at around 5 p.m. local time, he was shot.
An assassination attempt on a high profile political figure has not been seen in Columbia since the era of drug lord Pablo Escobar in the early 1990s.
Attorney General Luz Adriana Camargo told Caracol Radio that Uribe was in “intensive care.”
Local media reported that at least one bullet struck the senator in the neck or head.
The government of leftist President Gustavo Petro said it “categorically and forcefully” condemned the attack on Uribe during the campaign event in the west of the capital.
“This act of violence is an attack not only against his person, but also against democracy, freedom of thought, and the legitimate exercise of politics in Colombia,” the presidency said in the statement.
Uribe, a strong critic of Petro, announced last October his intention to run in the 2026 presidential election.
In a statement Saturday night, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. “condemns in the strongest possible terms the attempted assassination of Senator Miguel Uribe.”
Rubio called the shooting “a direct threat to democracy and the result of the violent leftist rhetoric coming from the highest levels of the Colombian government. Having seen firsthand Colombia’s progress over the past few decades to consolidate security and democracy, it can’t afford to go back to dark days of political violence. President Petro needs to dial back the inflammatory rhetoric and protect Colombian officials.”