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BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) \u2014 The father of Miguel Uribe, the Colombian presidential candidate fatally shot<\/a> at a political rally earlier this year, launched a presidential campaign Tuesday in what he called an effort keep his son’s legacy alive and build a safer and more prosperous Colombia.<\/p>\n Miguel Uribe Londo\u00f1o, 72, announced his candidacy with a speech outside the congressional building in the capital where his son became a well-known senator, and spoke behind a podium fitted with the campaign logo used by his deceased son.<\/p>\n \u201cTogether we can build a secure Colombia where people will not fear going out into the streets, and where business owners will not have to make extortion payments\u201d to gangs, Uribe Londo\u00f1o said in Bogota. \u201cA democratic Colombia, where the government does not foment divisions between the rich and the poor, whites or Blacks, or those who are on the left or on the right.\u201d<\/p>\n Uribe Londo\u00f1o was a member of Bogota\u2019s city council in the late 80s and a senator for Colombia\u2019s Conservative Party in the early 90s. But he had no plans to run for the presidency before his son\u2019s death, and was not widely known by the public.<\/p>\n He gained new prominence during his son\u2019s nationally televised funeral<\/a>, when he delivered a speech decrying what he called the country’s descent into \u201cmadness\u201d under the administration of left-wing President Gustavo Petro and urging Colombians to vote in next year’s elections.<\/p>\n Uribe Londo\u00f1o is one of five candidates that are running for the Democratic Center, the conservative party that Miguel Uribe belonged to. The party has said that later this year, it will use opinion polls to decide on its final candidate.<\/p>\n Sergio Guzman, a political analyst in Bogota, said that Uribe Londo\u00f1o\u2019s decision to enter the presidential race \u201creinvigorates\u201d the Democratic Center, which has struggled to find a popular candidate while its leader, former President Alvaro Uribe, fights corruption allegations in Colombian courts. The former president is no relation to Uribe Londo\u00f1o<\/p>\n Guzman said that Uribe Londo\u00f1o, whose wife was murdered in the 1990s, \u201csymbolizes the pain of many victims, especially those who are conservatives.\u201d<\/p>\n Uribe Londo\u00f1o\u2019s entry into the presidential race comes as Colombia faces a new wave of violence, caused largely by rebel groups and drug gangs that are trying to take over territory abandoned by the FARC, the guerrilla army that made peace with the government in 2016.<\/p>\n