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Hernández's League rebrands as Republican Party with Cabal on board

Hernández's League rebrands as Republican Party with Cabal on board

The Liga de Gobernantes Anticorrupción, founded by Rodolfo Hernández, announced it will become the Republican Party.

--- The context --- The Liga de Gobernantes Anticorrupción was born as the political vehicle of Rodolfo Hernández, the engineer from Bucaramanga who stunned Colombia by reaching the presidential runoff against Gustavo Petro on a blunt anti-corruption message. His death left the movement without its founding figure and facing the question of what it stood for without him. The answer came last Saturday at the Cuarta Etapa shopping center, where more than 300 people gathered for the announcement that the Liga will now be called the Republican Party. Among those present were former senator María Fernanda Cabal, a visible national figure of the movement, and congressman J. P. Hernández, of Alianza Verde, a content creator who won his seat through social media. --- The facts --- The party said it will keep fighting corruption, although the ethical and aesthetic identity promoted by Hernández, summed up in slogans such as do not steal and do not lie, will take a new direction under the new name. The congressman said he cannot yet join the new party but wanted to attend the event. Camilo Larios, the movement's president and director, explained that republicanism has more than 2,000 years of history and that the word republic comes from the Latin res publica, meaning the public thing, the thing of all. According to Larios, the new name is easier to remember and opens an international panorama, without abandoning its founding principles: liberty, private property, life, and an efficient state with solid institutions. --- The positions --- Larios said the Liga was born under those principles and that Hernández governed Bucaramanga with them, so the name change does not alter the project. He added that the party will have no motto but an ideological and programmatic platform inherited from La Liga that remains unchanged, and that the fight against corruption and the defense of an efficient state are more relevant than ever. On Cabal, the leader described her as a coherent woman and the most-voted member of Congress in the previous term, who was looking for a party where she felt identified. He said that if defending public resources, freedoms, life, private property, and workers means being right-wing, then they can be labeled as pure right, and he praised her national leadership, her political structure, and her future. Larios compared political parties to football teams that sign players and said Cabal is like a Messi who did not feel comfortable in the team where she was because they did not let her play well or pass her the ball. According to him, she now has the field open at the Republican Party, and they expect to win the 2027 local elections by a landslide. Larios said congressman J. P. Hernández has been a friend of the house all along and that the engineer voted for him in 2023. He recounted that Alianza Verde was about to approve a split to give him his own party but denied it upon learning he would not support Iván Cepeda's presidential candidacy. Hernández, he added, dreamed of a Republican Party in Colombia and, although he remains legally tied to Alianza Verde, would join the new party if a legal opportunity arises. Talks with Cabal began months ago, Larios revealed: she reviewed the statutes and identified with the platform. He recalled that in the runoff she made several videos openly supporting Hernández's candidacy, that they had a good friendship, and that the Republican Party name pleased her even more because she fully identifies with republican values. --- What remains unknown --- Several points remain unclear: it was not specified whether Cabal has formally joined or what role she will play in the party's structure; nor were details given about the process to register the new name with electoral authorities or what will happen to the anti-corruption brand that defined the Liga from its birth. --- Unanswered questions --- What offices will the Republican Party contest in 2027 and with which candidates? Will it manage to build a national structure with Cabal's arrival? How will the voters who backed Hernández for his anti-corruption message receive this shift toward a broader ideological identity? --- EPM analysis --- The name change bets on turning a personalist movement built around Hernández into a party with its own ideological identity. Cabal's arrival brings national weight and a structure the Liga never had, something essential to compete in local elections across the country. The risk is diluting what made the movement unique: an anti-corruption message that attracted voters beyond left-right labels. If the Republican Party keeps that banner while adding figures with a track record, it can grow; if it becomes just another party on the spectrum, it will squander the political capital it inherited. 📌 EPM Take: In EPM's view, the transformation of the Liga into the Republican Party is the boldest step the movement could take after its founder's death: it stops being a personalist electoral vehicle and tries to become a party with ideology, structure, and international ambition. The addition of María Fernanda Cabal, whom Larios compared to signing a Messi, gives it the national visibility it needs for 2027. The challenge will be not betraying the anti-corruption banner that gave it birth: if it keeps it, it can broaden its base; if it dilutes it among labels, it will waste Hernández's legacy.
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