Background
Carlos Lleras Restrepo was born in Bogota on 12 April 1908.
government official politician president
Carlos Lleras Restrepo was born in Bogota on 12 April 1908.
Educated in Bogotá.
As a Liberal student leader, he took an active role in politics in the late 1920s. A continuing interest in agrarian questions was aroused by his involvement in disputes over land problems while an official of the Cundinamarca departmental government in the early 1930s. A protege of the Liberal reform president, Alfonso López Pumarejo (1934-1938), Lleras was a representative, senator, and minister of finance under both López and Eduardo Santos (1938-1942). On six different occasions, he served as a member, or president, of the Liberal Party's National Directorate.
In 1948 Lleras assumed leadership of the Liberal opposition to the Conservative government of Mariano Ospina Pérez following the assassination of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. In 1952 he was forced into exile during the presidency of Laureano Gómez. Lleras served on the boards of directors of several banks, and on the board of the Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia, which controlled the country’s major export, coffee. In 1961 he pushed through congress agrarian reform legislation.
Lleras was named director of the Liberal Party in 1972. But his bid for another presidental nomination in 1974 was defeated by Alfonso López Michelson, who subsequently was elected president.