Colombia is going through a moment of great fragility for presidential legitimacy. Not because previous presidents have not been investigated for the irregular financing of their presidential campaigns, many proven and others unpunished. Money from drug trafficking and more recently from the multinational Odebrecht have been present in at least…
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Colombia is going through a moment of great fragility for presidential legitimacy. Not because previous presidents have not been investigated for the irregular financing of their presidential campaigns, many proven and others unpunished. Money from drug trafficking and more recently from the multinational Odebrecht have been present in at least the last three decades of electoral processes in the country. Most of the investigated campaigns were favored by preclusion or acquittal. The most notorious case was that of former president Ernesto Samper (1994-1998) with process 8,000 for the income of money from drug traffickers from the Cali Cartel to his campaign. The commission of accusations of the Congress, in charge of the trial of the leaders, has always guaranteed them acquittal.
As the analyst Héctor Riveros has explained, the importance of the role of parliamentary majorities today is the order of the day as a guarantor of governability, and I would say of impunity as well. For this reason, that President Gustavo Petro does not have them, he places him like none of his predecessors in an almost anticipated condemnation. Unless the three researchers who attend to his processes are in charge of delaying or establishing that there are no merits to advance. They are Olga Lucía Velásquez, from the Green Alliance; Wilmer Carrillo, from the U Party; and Alirio Uribe, from the Historical Pact. With the Government or in independence, the three are allies of the Petrist cause.
In the scenario in which your son Nicolás Petro proves the use of money from corrupt sources —questioned, the most permissive will say— from Santander Lopesierra, the so-called Marlboro Man, and the well-known Turk Hilsaca, in political campaign expenses, the trial of the president and the criminal investigation of the campaign manager, and today president of Ecopetrol, Ricardo Roa.
The moment requires calm and above all that the rule of law prevail. Investigative standards are being tested so that, once the commission of crimes has been proven, those responsible are punished. It does not matter if it is the first president, because precisely that speech of change that he sold, and that it is necessary to recognize that Colombia must move with him or without him to break the status quo that the opposition continues to defend, must be possible. The rest is the accommodation in a left that was not able to take power without the sins that he criticized so much. I wish it weren’t so.
It is the time for the greatness of judicial institutions, for leaders with clear consciences and for the obligation to confront the ghosts of the past, with which we cannot continue to live in order to guarantee apparent stability. This process cannot violate the privacy of the defendants, nor their personal conversations, nor their nudes. The judicial officials who came to capture Nicolás Petro filmed his current partner naked, eight months pregnant; days later a private conversation with his sister was revealed. We need proof, not declarations resulting from injuries due to abandonment or bad upbringing, which will always collect their share of revenge.
It is logical that Petro’s unfortunate declarations of “I did not raise him” in relation to his son or that he “reflects in jail for his mistakes” result in a scenario of ruptures and family scars that are difficult to heal. But this case refers to other issues, to the temptations of easy wealth that, like the above, should be analyzed by psychologists and sociologists. But for criminal proceedings, probative material is necessary, evidence that leaves no doubt about what happened and does not leave room for narratives that this government was not allowed to govern the establishment.
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Because the establishment has not been responsible for the judicial process, although it has always been a silent accomplice and guarantor of social impunity. It has been the same money from drug trafficking, which has permeated Colombian society and which keeps us in the hell of endless violence. Those responsible are Nicolás Petro and his ex-partner. Now he needs to prove the income of the money he received from his father’s campaign. As long as he does not do so, the president must be guaranteed the continuity of his mandate.
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2023-08-06 10:30:00
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