Bogotá — Days after the controversy that caused the departure of Alejandro Gaviria from the Ministry of Education in the midst of the criticism he launched against the Petro government’s Health Reform, Bloomberg Línea spoke with him to find out what is the balance he makes today when the spirits went down.
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“I believe that in the Government there can be positive changes on issues such as Agrarian Reform, higher education, the fight against the climate crisis and the energy transition, but I believe in incremental change, not in big ruptures, I do not believe in the revolutions. Probably in a few years historians will realize that the government of Gustavo Petro was a government more of transition, even continuity, than change. Which is not necessarily bad,” emphasized former minister Gaviria.
Faced with his departure from the ministerial cabinet, he indicated that he is not the person to answer for the reasons why he left the Government. “I didn’t make that decision. but I believe that the country knows well that perhaps the main cause of my departure had to do with the controversy surrounding the Health Reform”.
And it is that we remember that days before the filing of this project, one of the flags of the Executive that today is undergoing processing in the Congress of the Republic, a document was released in which Gaviria made serious objections to it. Among those, that the diagnosis that was made of the health system was not clear because it seemed to insinuate that most of the problems originate in the administration, be it public or private; In addition, he said that eliminating the EPS did not solve the territorial inequalities and the financial unsustainability of the system.
Well, when asked how he sees this path of having first tried to become President of the Republic and then being part of the first left-wing government in Colombia, he commented that “someone recently said that I made those mistakes of launching myself into electoral politics and then accept a Ministry in the Government of Gustavo Petro. I do not think so. I would make the same decisions again and I do not regret, I say it emphatically, for having tried to contribute to a plural government. I believe, as a liberal, in the need to have partial agreements between people who have different visions of politics and social change,” said Gaviria.
Along these lines, he explained that when he left the government of President Santos in August 2018 (of which he was Minister of Health) he said that he was not interested in returning to politics, but that he did so as a candidate, pre-candidate and then as Minister. “I have no regrets, it is a life lived more intensely. I am left with a much clearer understanding, I will put it that way, of the complexities of electoral politics.”
Facing what is coming for him, the former Minister of Education stressed that he wants to continue expressing his opinion, participating, and being part of public debates, including those of the reforms that are coming, highlighting that of Health.
“I want to maybe write another book about my political reflections on this crazy time, maybe a follow-up to the book I just published, ‘I don’t expect to take that trip.’ And I also want, it is something I have had for a long time, to learn R programming and read a novel, which I have there as a pending subject, which I have wanted to read for 20 years and have not been able to: Moby Dick by Herman Melville” .
It was on February 27 when Gustavo Petro removed Alejandro Gaviria from office through a presidential address, whom he thanked for his management and after which he immediately appointed Aurora Vergara, who had been serving as Vice Minister of Higher Education and who took office this Wednesday, March 8.
With the former Minister of Education, María Isabel Urrutia, who was in charge of the Ministry of Sports and who today is immersed in a scandal for having signed and approved hundreds of contracts after the decision to leave was made public, also left the cabinet; and Patricia Ariza, who only completed six months in charge of the Culture portfolio.
