[1] A referendum proposal that would have allowed incumbent President Álvaro Uribe the opportunity to run for a third term was rejected by the Constitutional Court of Colombia in a 7–2 ruling on 26 February 2010.

[2] Because no candidate received a majority (more than one-half) of the votes cast in the 30 May poll, the candidates with the two highest vote totals competed in a runoff election on 20 June: Juan Manuel Santos of the liberal-conservative Social Party of National Unity which unites supporters of former President Uribe, and Antanas Mockus from the Green Party.

[3] In 2007, Luis Guillermo Giraldo, leader of the pro-Uribe Party of the U, announced he would create the "promoters' committee", a group charged with gathering signatures to call a referendum on whether Uribe should be allowed to run for a third term in office.

[3] Former Colombian ambassador to the United Kingdom, Noemí Sanín, and former agriculture minister Andrés Felipe Arias, two of the closest Uribe allies, were seeking nomination by the Conservative Party.

Two of the opposition candidates were Rafael Pardo of the Liberal Party and Gustavo Petro of the Alternative Democratic Pole.

Former Medellín mayor Sergio Fajardo joined him as his running mate on 5 April 2010, after missing the requirements to become a presidential candidate himself.

[4] On election day seven Colombian security services personnel were killed and eight were missing; parallels were drawn with FARC attacks and Santos' tenure as Defense Minister.