Roy Barreras Retires From Politics After More Than Two Decades
Roy Barreras is retiring from politics after more than two decades as a prominent figure in Colombian public life, a career marked by his movement between different political forces, his negotiating skills, and his involvement in some of the country’s most important national debates.
The former senator, former president of Congress, and former ambassador to the United Kingdom announced that he will definitively leave politics to focus on literature and work on a new novel.
The announcement came after a presidential campaign in which he sought to become the candidate capable of bringing the center-left together around an alternative to the dominant and continuity-driven Historical Pact, led by Gustavo Petro, in the last presidential election.
Barreras won the controversial Frente por la Vida primary, but his candidacy ended up far from reaching the runoff. In the first round of the presidential election, he received just 14,108 votes, equivalent to 0.05%, a result that brought his latest attempt to become president of Colombia to an end.
Roy Barreras retires from politics after more than two decades
In a post on his X social media account, the veteran politician brought more than 20 years of political career to an end. “I spent 20 years working as a doctor; another 20 years in political life; life is change. A permanent search for meaning. For ways to serve or be useful. There are other ways. No more medicine; no more politics! I’ll let you rest!” he wrote yesterday, Sunday, September 6.
A doctor and sociologist, Barreras began his political career in liberal circles and entered Congress in 2006 as a representative for Valle del Cauca, elected on the ticket of right-wing Radical Change (Cambio Radical, in Spanish). During those early years, he aligned himself with the government of Alvaro Uribe (2002-2010) and became one of its defenders in Congress.
In 2009, he left Radical Change and joined the Partido de la U, the political party created around Uribe’s political project and later led by Juan Manuel Santos. A year later, he entered the Senate and began establishing himself as one of Congress’s most skilled political operators, known for his strong oratory. He served as president of the Senate from 2012 to 2013 and later headed the Partido de la U.
His career was also closely tied to the peace process with the FARC. During the Santos administration (2010-2018), he participated in the negotiations in Havana and later played a role in the political efforts that helped advance the 2016 peace agreement.
Shift to petrismo in 2022
Barreras’s political transformation became more evident over the years. After two decades in the Party of the U, he broke with the party and gradually moved closer to Gustavo Petro’s political project. In the 2022 elections, he won a Senate seat as part of the left-wing Pacto Histórico coalition, with the endorsement of the Broad Democratic Alliance.
With Petro in the presidency, Barreras once again took one of the country’s most important institutional positions: he was elected president of the Senate and became one of the main architects of the majorities the new government needed to advance its reforms.
His ability to negotiate with different political sectors was one of his main strengths, although it also reinforced the image of a politician capable of switching sides depending on the political circumstances, earning him considerable criticism from opposition sectors and former political allies.
In 2023, he left the Senate to become Colombia’s ambassador to the United Kingdom under Petro’s government. From that position, he maintained his ties to the progressive political project, although he also expressed differences with some of its policies, particularly the Total Peace strategy, the dialogue with the various illegal armed groups led by President Petro.
From his final presidential bid to literature as his new path
His return to electoral politics came with this year’s elections. Barreras decided to compete in the Front for Life primary — with Ivan Cepeda, the clear favorite, excluded by the courts — with the intention of building a center-left candidacy capable of challenging the progressive sector’s leadership and preventing the vote from becoming concentrated exclusively around Petro and the Historical Pact.
The former senator won that primary with 257,037 votes, ahead of Daniel Quintero, Edison Lucio Torres, and Martha Viviana Bernal. However, the result did not translate into enough support in the first round of the presidential election. His 14,108 votes represented just 0.05% of the total, confirming the failure of his electoral strategy.
The defeat ultimately brought an end to a political career that took him through Uribismo, Santismo, and Petrismo, turning Barreras into one of the most recognized negotiators in the Colombian Congress.
In his farewell message on X, Barreras said that “another generation is coming that will defend the same causes to which we dedicated a large part of our lives, and they will do it better!” He now intends to focus on literature and is working in Spain on the manuscript of a new novel that he is expected to deliver to Penguin Publishers.
After twenty years devoted to politics, Barreras says the time has come to step away from alliances, campaigns, and electoral disputes. His departure marks, at least for now, the end of one of the most politically shifting careers in recent Colombian politics as he turns to writing: “Welcome, Literature, which I hope will last another 20 years,” he concluded.
20 años ejercí como médico; Otros 20 años en la vida política; La vida es cambio. Búsqueda permanente de sentido. De formas de servir o de ser útil. Hay otras formas. No más medicina; No más política! Los dejo descansar! Viene otra generación que defenderà las mismas causas a las… pic.twitter.com/ci0r8H0UC1
— Roy Barreras (@RoyBarreras) September 6, 2026