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Drug kingpin's killer seeks Colombia office
Ex-colonel is running for governor
By Karl Penhaul, Globe Correspondent

BARBOSA, Colombia -- Fireworks threw off red sparks into the night sky and flashed in the polished brass trombones and trumpets of the raucous town band.

An armor-plated Toyota Land Cruiser swept into this northeast market town. Inside was a former police colonel, Hugo Aguilar, en route to his latest campaign rally in downtown Barbosa. Bodyguards carrying automatic pistols or pump-action shotguns hung off the back of pickup trucks.

While film star Arnold Schwarzenegger is running for governor in the California recall election, Aguilar, a real-life "Terminator," is seeking to become the next governor of Santander Province.

A decade and 300 miles now separate Aguilar from a rooftop in Medellin where he ended the reign of the world's undisputed king of cocaine, Pablo Escobar, with a single shot to the head from his 9mm pistol. But each day the images of that final shootout, worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster, roll through his mind.

"There was no other alternative. It was him or us," Aguilar said, during a brief break recently in his hectic campaign schedule. "When the shootout began, we had to use all the firepower we had.

"When he fell on the roof he was dead," he said. "That ended the story of Pablo Escobar."

A close friend and ally of President Alvaro Uribe, Aguilar is running on an independent ticket in the Oct. 26 local elections to choose governors in the country's 32 provinces and mayors in more than 1,000 towns.

With a pledge to terminate the rule of corrupt political barons, fight communist rebels and rival right-wing paramilitary gangs, and alleviate grinding poverty, Aguilar is drawing on strong cross-party support from Liberals and Conservatives.

He appears to be mounting a strong challenge to his closest rival, Luis Francisco Bohorquez, candidate for the Liberal Party, which has long regarded Santander as its...