Antonio Navarro Wolff

Navarro died on Sunday 1 November 2026 at 2:42 pm, aged 78. His family announced the death in a statement: "With deep sorrow we inform his friends and all Colombians that our beloved Antonio Navarro Wolff died at 2:42 this afternoon." They asked that the farewell be held in the intimacy of the family, requested respect for their mourning and said details of a public farewell would follow the next day. The cause of death was not made public; press reports said he had been in poor health. Tributes came from across Colombian politics.

Antonio José Navarro Wolff was born on 9 July 1948 in Pasto, the capital of the southern department of Nariño, to Rafael Navarro Uribe and María Emma Wolff Pizarro. Spanish-language sources describe the family as being of partly German descent. His father later ran a small pharmacy in Cali, the city where Navarro studied and began his professional life.

Navarro graduated as a sanitary engineer from the University of Valle in Cali in 1972 and went on to postgraduate courses there. With scholarships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the British Council and Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC), he studied environmental engineering at Loughborough University in England in the mid-1970s.

Engineer and academic (1972 to 1978). Navarro advised the University of Valle's Department of Social Medicine, coordinated the Multidisciplinary Research Centre for Rural Development (CIMDER) from 1972 to 1977, was an international adviser to the IDRC from 1976 to 1978, taught at the University of Valle and directed its sanitary engineering curriculum.

M-19 (late 1970s to 1990). He joined the 19th of April Movement at the end of the 1970s and rose to second-in-command. He coordinated the group's peace negotiating team under President Belisario Betancur in 1984 and 1985 and headed the commission to organise the National Dialogue with Vera Grabe, Alfonso Jacquin, Andrés Almarales and Israel Santamaría. In May 1985 he was gravely wounded by a grenade in a Cali cafeteria. With Carlos Pizarro he negotiated the peace agreement signed with the Barco government in March 1990.

National politics (1990 to 1991). After Pizarro's assassination on 26 April 1990, Navarro became the M-19 presidential candidate and finished third with about 12.5 percent. President César Gaviria named him Minister of Health. He resigned to lead the M-19 Democratic Alliance list for the National Constituent Assembly and served as one of its three co-presidents with Álvaro Gómez Hurtado and Horacio Serpa Uribe. The Constitution was proclaimed on 4 July 1991.

Elected office (1994 to 2018). He ran for president again in 1994, was Mayor of Pasto from 1995 to 1997, Representative for Bogotá from 1998 to 2002, Senator from 2002 to 2006, Governor of Nariño from 2008 to 2011 and, for the Green Alliance, Senator again from 2014 to 2018. In 2006 he lost the Alternative Democratic Pole presidential primary to Carlos Gaviria Díaz. In early 2012 he served about three months as Secretary of Government under Bogotá mayor Gustavo Petro.

Later years. Navarro sought the Green Alliance nomination for mayor of Bogotá in 2019, losing the internal contest to Claudia López, and remained a co-president of the party and a frequent commentator on constitutional questions.

Navarro's first marriage, to Amparo Erazo, ended in divorce; their son is Camilo Navarro Erazo. After the 1985 attack he had a relationship with the writer Laura Restrepo, who had been a government delegate at the M-19 talks, and spent time in exile in Mexico. In 1994 he married Marcela Bustamante Morón, with whom he had two sons, Gabriel and Alejandro; the couple later separated. Gabriel died in January 2015 at the age of 19. Navarro walked with a prosthetic leg after the 1985 grenade attack, and the injury left him with the distinctive hoarse voice that colleagues remembered after his death. In an interview with the magazine Bocas he described himself as a mild, "Latin American" Catholic who went to Mass now and then.

Navarro came to politics from the nationalist left of the M-19 but became known for a pragmatic, conciliatory style. He said the M-19 demobilised because it knew it would not win the war. As Governor of Nariño he combined participatory budgeting with alliances with the private sector and supported crop substitution alongside eradication of illicit crops. In 1994 he argued that if the M-19 had received amnesty, the military officers tried over the Palace of Justice should receive equal treatment. In his last years he defended the 1991 Constitution against proposals for a new constituent assembly, arguing that needed reforms could be made under the existing charter.

Navarro is remembered as one of the fathers of the 1991 Constitution, which created the tutela action, the Constitutional Court and a broad charter of rights, and as the proof that a guerrilla movement could disarm and compete in democratic politics. After his death Humberto de la Calle wrote that much of the Constitution was owed to him; Iván Cepeda called him one of the most outstanding leaders of the Colombian left; Gustavo Bolívar said he "signed the peace and kept his word"; and Álvaro Uribe and Sergio Fajardo praised his decency and trustworthiness across political lines.

Distinguished Services Medal, Category I, from the Directorate General of the National Police (1997). Best Mayor of Colombia award from El Tiempo, the FES Leadership Institute and other institutions (1998). Executive of the Year from the Colombian Junior Chamber (1998). Best Congressman from the magazine Cambio (2002). He was also recognised as an outstanding governor during his term in Nariño, and was a member of the Washington think tank the Inter-American Dialogue.

Navarro was portrayed by Fabio Rubiano as Marco Navia in the 2012 Caracol TV series Escobar, el patrón del mal. He gave many long-form interviews, including to Bocas magazine, Yamid Amat and the programme Última Palabra, and maintained an active X account (@navarrowolff) and a YouTube channel.

Palace of Justice. The M-19's November 1985 seizure of the Palace of Justice and the military retaking left dozens dead, including Supreme Court justices, and shaped how critics viewed Navarro and his former comrades for decades.

Alleged cartel funding. Cali Cartel accountant Guillermo Pallomari testified in a US federal court in Florida that Navarro was among politicians who allegedly cooperated with the cartel around the Constituent Assembly. Analysts such as Roberto Posada García-Peña considered the claims of doubtful credibility, and Navarro said his opposition to extradition had not been bought. The book Mi verdad by Alberto Giraldo also alleged cartel contributions to his campaign.

M-19 and drug trafficking. Navarro denied that the M-19 had been financed by drug traffickers, while the Truth Commission's report on the Palace of Justice recorded a version alleging Medellín Cartel funding of the group.