Although there are still two years until the presidential elections are held in Colombia, the low popularity of the current president, Gustavo Petro, and the numerous scandals that plague the Executive have caused some profiles to already begin to sound for the electoral race that will be held in 2026. .
For the Democratic Center, in addition to the name of Senator María Fernanda Cabal, the pre-candidacy of Paola Holguín has just been made official. In this interview with LA GACETA she reveals what has led her to want to be the one to lead the opposition against Petro’s plans to entrench himself in power.
-Just a few days ago your candidacy for the next presidential elections in Colombia was made official, although you assure that you have been a candidate since you were four years old.
That’s right, when my parents asked me when it was chuiquita What I wanted to be when I grew up, I always answered: president. Since the age of four. They thought it was a joke, but time has passed and it turns out that it is not. That was my vocation since I was little and I trained and did things thinking about that, that that was the reason for my life.
These elections are scheduled for May 2026, but for you, Colombians, there is not much left. The electoral campaign begins much earlier than we are used to in Spain.
In Colombia, campaigns are normally very long and, furthermore, at this juncture something is happening. The unfavorability of the current government means that people have started talking about the electoral issue for a long time, because there is fatigue and exhaustion with the model and with the Government.
Gustavo Petro has only been in the Executive for a year and a half, but it has given him time to be the protagonist of several scandals that are affecting his popularity. However, he has also hinted that he may run for re-election, an option that is prohibited in Colombia by the Constitution.
Violating the Constitution and the law is also how Petro began campaigning. He began to talk about the need to achieve a large left bloc, to strengthen his party, which is the Historical Pact, in view of the elections on the 26th. In Colombia there has been no re-election since the government of Juan Manuel Santos, after him presented the legislative act that prohibited re-election in Colombia. A sitting president cannot participate in politics or try to benefit a party. What Petro is doing is a clear violation of the Constitution and the law.
In addition, it is immersed in several corruption scandals. Several of them have to do with the financing of the campaign and that of his son Nicolás Petro. What status are these cases in?
The Prosecutor’s Office is pursuing the case against Nicolás Petro and Day Vásquez, the ex-wife, where there is a very important body of evidence about resources that went to Gustavo Petro’s campaign from improper sources, for example, from Santa López Sierra, better known as the marlboro man, linked to drug trafficking, or the Torres clan, which is a group of contractors. Additionally, there are statements given by Armando Benedetti, who was in Petro’s campaign and was Colombia’s ambassador to Venezuela at the beginning of his government, which speaks of some 15,000 million that, apparently, entered the campaign from improper sources. This process is in the Prosecutor’s Office, which has already requested prison for Nicolás Petro. But there are also other processes in the National Electoral Council and in the Commission of Accusations for violation of campaign limits, improper financing, procedural falsehood and falsehood in public documents, all linked to Gustavo Petro’s campaign.
All this has caused the precipitous fall of its popularity.
The lack of legitimacy generated by this issue in the campaign, plus the way in which the government has been managing, has led to Petro’s very low favorability today, between 30 and 26%. It is beginning to be shown that the government does not have the affection of the citizens, not even of what was previously considered the hard vote of the left; there are already sectors of the left that have become anti-Petrist.
What do you mean when you say that this low popularity is due to how the government is managing?
That there are many things. On the one hand, the corrupt way in which the government has been managed, the cronyism, the excessive expenses… and on the other, the reforms that it is promoting and the citizens do not want, such as the health reform, the labor prevention reform… they They are trying to impose them by force. In addition to the president’s own attitude and irresponsibility. This is a president who disappears for seasons, who does not fulfill the agenda, very dedicated to Twitter, to fights, and not to what presidents have to do, which is to represent the unity of the nation and try to solve the problems of the communities.
Even so, it seems that he intends to continue governing and has advocated creating a new party that brings together the entire left. This reminds us a bit of Hugo Chávez.
Yes, but I don’t think he’s going to make it. First because there is a vote to punish Gustavo Petro. We saw it in the recent local elections of October 2023, in which Petro’s allied parties and his candidates were the big losers of the contest. And additionally because the legitimacy and governance of Petro is increasingly complex.
In those regional elections the left-wing parties did not have a good result. This sounds familiar to us Spaniards, something similar happened in Spain in our regional elections, although later that left did manage to govern after the general elections were held. Do you think the same thing can happen in Colombia?
That the opposition parties have won in the local elections helps to generate a political counterweight. And the fact that the Government is doing so badly also helps for the next electoral process. But none of that is enough. We also need to be able to generate a platform that provides Colombians with a real alternative that provides solutions to their problems, that can bring together broad sectors of society and, above all, a platform that provides hope. We are living in a country in which people are anguished by the economic situation, by insecurity, by social deterioration and by a government that seems to want to break down the institutions and democratic order. It is not enough to win the local elections, it is not enough for the government to do badly. It is necessary that we be able to generate an alternative that gives hope and response to Colombians.
You have spoken about insecurity. In recent months the Executive has established dialogues with criminal groups. What does your party, the Democratic Center, think of these negotiations? What result have they had?
We believe that the processes have to subject criminals to the State and not bring the State to its knees before criminals. These processes have to have serious legal frameworks, timelines and red lines, not everything is negotiable. The Government has opened negotiation tables with the ELN, with the FARC dissidents, led by criminals Iván Mordisco and Iván Márquez, with Los Pachenca, with the Clan del Golfo, and with drug trafficking organizations. Approaches are taking place with many of these groups without having the legal framework, with many there has been talk of a bilateral cessation, which they have not complied with. And meanwhile, the government is weakening its public force and this has caused a growth in crimes of greater impact. Kidnapping and extortion are rampant in Colombia while the public force is tied up and does not react to the attacks of increasingly powerful criminal structures.
In addition to this problem that exists with insecurity, how do you evaluate the economic management that Petro has carried out during this year and a half?
It is unfortunate. After the pandemic, Colombia was going through a process of economic reactivation that with Petro became a process of deceleration. Investors have lost confidence, several members of Petro’s cabinet have a very harsh anti-business speech. In addition, it has tried to introduce a series of reforms that put the private sector at risk, such as the labor reform, which generates rigidity and cost overruns. He also approved a tax reform that was very harsh on the productive sectors. Its economic management is not very assertive and that is leading us to a serious deceleration and that brings with it a very high social deterioration.
Similar situations are experienced in other Latin American countries. However, in 2022 there was a “left turn” in the governments of several nations. What do you think it was due to?
It’s as if no one learns in someone else’s head. Many Latin American countries have fallen into these populist regimes, of authoritarian courts that want to collectivize, that end with freedom, that end with private property, with the freedom of business, that try to break down democracy, institutionality… and it happens in one country and then in another and in another. And it seems that we don’t learn. Obviously there are reasons for hope, like what happened in Argentina with Javier Milei. But I believe that the great lesson here is that democracy and freedom must be defended, we must be cared for, we cannot take them for granted, in that our countries have made a mistake. We cannot continue to temporize with those who destroy democracy from within. Sometimes it seems that excessive good manners end up turning civility into servility, and that does not serve nations.
Do you think that can happen in Spain? Are we assuming that democracy is guaranteed when it is not?
I should not intervene in the internal affairs of Spain, but I am going to be bold in the following: we see with concern that unconstitutional proposals are being made from the central government. It begins by deteriorating the independence of the institutions and that does not benefit anyone because it directly attacks the rule of law. One must set off the alarms in time because today the blows against democracy are not like before. It is not that a military officer suddenly arrives and carries out a coup d’état; today the blows take place slowly. Little by little, freedom, institutions, and the rule of law are being undermined and that leads to a path of no return in democratic destruction.
In Spain today we are concerned about the amnesty. What do you think that this rule can be approved?
Amnesties have only served to weaken democracy and to empower those who want to destroy democracy from within. Fidel Castro was amnestied, Chavez was amnestied and Petro was amnestied. In Colombia, amnesties have re-victimized the victims. We saw it with the FARC, with the M19… the crimes were forgotten. With the Havana Agreement they told us that those responsible for atrocious crimes and crimes against humanity would not have eligibility and that they would never be in Congress. But it was a disguised amnesty: today there are ten FARC congressmen, five senators and five representatives to the House, who have not served a single day in prison while being responsible for atrocious crimes and crimes against humanity. Furthermore, it establishes a double standard: a person who has been convicted could not participate and they, despite their responsibility for extremely serious crimes, today have seats in Congress. Governments do wrong when, with any excuse, they want to ignore the internal and international legal framework.
