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Luis Carlos Galán Politician

Luis Carlos Galán Sarmiento (29 September 1943 – 18 August 1989) was a Colombian journalist and liberal politician who ran for the presidency of Colombia on two occasions, the first time representing the Liberal Party in 1982 which he lost to Belisario Betancur. These adverse results encouraged him to focus his aspirations in his political movement called New Liberalism that he had founded in 1979. The movement was initially the offspring of the mainstream Colombian Liberal Party but, with the mediation of former president Julio César Turbay, Galán returned to the party in 1987 and intended to win the party nomination for official candidate.Galán declared himself enemy of the dangerous and influential Colombian drug cartels, mainly the Medellín Cartel led by Pablo Escobar (who had been part of his New Liberalism Movement) and Gonzalo Rodríguez aka "El Mexicano", that were corrupting the Colombian society at all levels. Galán supported an extradition treaty with the United States.After receiving several death threats, on 18 August 1989 Galán was shot to death by hitmen hired by the drug cartels during a public demonstration in the town of Soacha, Cundinamarca. At the time he was comfortably leading the polls for the forthcoming 1990 Presidential election. His murder investigation remains partially unsolved.