This thesis analyzes how former Colombian Presidents Laureano Gómez Castro and Álvaro Uribe Vélez utilized their speeches to advance autocratic agendas under the guise of protecting democracy and pluralism. This research employed Discourse Analysis as proposed by Teun Van Dijk, aiming to detail symbolic violence through speeches that, although seemingly promoting democracy, concealed attacks on their opponents. It was discovered that both leaders, through their rhetoric and actions, persuaded the political space towards an exclusive regime, promoting a state that, under promises of inclusion and democracy, fostered exclusion and weakened democratic institutions. The results also suggest that while in power, the former presidents moderated their speeches to include the opposition, a practice not observed while they were in opposition, where they were more visceral in their attacks. The analysis of the information was conducted on two levels. First, the concepts that appear most frequently in each one's speeches were recovered to explain their existence. Then, the information was classified according to the categories proposed by the researcher to understand how they used their speeches for two main purposes: first, to empathize with most of the population, and second, to create an internal enemy to attack. When referring to the former, they depict a plural country where everyone can participate, and when discussing the latter, which grouped the opponents of their mandate, their eradication was justified because they opposed the democratic regime. In creating their nemesis, both knew how to use the population's fears: communists, in the case of Gómez; and terrorists, in the case of Uribe.
