After graduating as Economist from the Externado University in Bogotá, 27-year-old Araújo ran for the Chamber of Representatives, representing the Liberal Party and was elected. Two years later, along with his father, he founded a dissident political movement called Alternative for Social Advance (ALAS). After his second term in the Chamber, he ran for the Senate receiving more than half of his votes from the department of Cesar and Bogotá, where he got the highest vote for someone from the Caribbean Region. His movement supported Álvaro Uribe for the Presidency of Colombia.