2023-06-04 19:27:12
in solo 144 hours later, the Casa de Nariño was left without a chief of staff and without an ambassador in Venezuela. And although the departure of these officials –Laura Sarabia and Armando Benedetti– is a palliative for the toughest crisis that Gustavo Petro has faced in his 10-month term, the government is alert because the scandal – which has a component of illegal tricks – may continue to break out. The President and his inner circle are on their guard.
And is not for less. When on Thursday night – in an apartment in the eastern part of Bogotá– Petro sat Sarabia and Benedetti face to face to try to put an end to this novel, which led to criminal and disciplinary proceedings, the first alert arose.
The conversation was difficult and the two, each in their own way and with their own tone, reminded the Head of State that they have sensitive information on how the presidential campaign was carried out and the way in which key guidelines have been given in this first part of the self-styled government of change. Petro only listened, but –and already bordering midnight on that first day of June– he asked a question that tipped the balance.
Sources who knew about that appointment, and even according to reports from other media, agreed that the Head of State reproached Benedetti in a neutral tone for not having informed him directly – with whom he had a constant line – about the scandal that was escalating and that I knew was going to be published. The reason is that, in the days prior to that meeting, it was leaked that it was the now ex-ambassador who helped Semana consolidate the information that shook the heart of the Casa de Nariño; he himself, in a Twitter thread, acknowledged that he knew everything that was coming: “My ‘sin’ is knowing that it was going to be published and I kept quiet; Due to the veracity and seriousness of the facts, there was no way to stop it.”
There are various versions of Benedetti’s response to Petro’s question, but what is certain is that the President felt more secure in Sarabia’s loyalty. For this reason, the next day and before a police contingent that was on the rise, he said that the two were leaving his Government to clarify a tangle that has lost cash (there is talk of 7,000 dollars and 150 million pesos), illegal interceptions two former employees of Sarabia (Marelbys Meza and Fabiola Perea) and possibly misuse of a state polygraph with a private individual.
But the announcement had a nuance. Regarding Sarabia, he referred to as “my dear and esteemed official”, while of Benedetti he only said, dryly, “Ambassador in Venezuela”. And there, after those words from Petro and the respective communiqués from the two outgoing officials with words of gratitude – his was written with familiar names and hers included the family of the Head of State – the second alert arose.
This public nod shows that Petro feels calm with Sarabia, who moved away from her mentor and former boss for 6 years in Congress – she worked, like her husband, Andrés Parra, at Benedetti’s UTL – and He did everything so that the reasons for Petro’s long public absences and his constant rudeness did not spread even to the magistrates of the high courts. It was a tomb next to the Head of State.
However, with the now former ambassador – who this weekend was notified that his visa to the United States was suspended for the second time due to possible misuse of his passport – there is mistrust. On the one hand, throughout the campaign he accompanied Petro to visit more than 100 public squares, he went abroad with him, they had moments of social intimacy to celebrate victories and analyze corrections when mistakes were made, which is why he has in his possession hundreds of messages, audios and photos that –misinterpreted– could generate another scandal for the President if they are leaked. And the fear is latent, to the point that from the Casa de Nariño they have spoken with some caution about a celebratory video that could unleash noise.
However, the cracks in the security of the Head of State are not only in matters of the privacy of a Government that this week learned that its disapproval is already close to 60 percent, the highest in years during the first months of a representative. The fact that the Prosecutor’s Office began this Saturday to question three patrolmen and a police mayor (he would also call a colonel and a major) who were involved in the irregular order to shoot the Sarabia employees opens another front of controversy .
He Colonel Carlos Feria Buitrago, head of security at the Casa de Nariño and police officer linked to Petro’s personal security for the last decade, has to testify in the bunker to determine if he gave the order to use the polygraph de Palacio with a former babysitter and if, in addition, it had something to do with the police reports that justified that the lines of Marelbys and Fabiola – with the aliases of ‘la Cocinera’ and ‘la Madrina’– were included at the end of January, and for 10 days, in a judicial file against the murdered criminal known as Siopas, former leader of the Clan del Golfo.
If on account of the investigations that he himself Attorney General, Francisco Barbosa, described the strikes as the return to Colombiaends up forcing the departure of Colonel Feria Buitrago, President Petro would lose another highly trusted person. Someone reserved who also knows his intimate movements in detail.
For the Head of State, neither his former chief of staff nor anyone from his government, which would also include Benedetti and Colonel Feria, has ordered anyone to be shot. He even said that the Prosecutor’s Office can investigate everything it wants in the Casa de Nariño and, incidentally, He instructed his Defense Minister, Iván Velásquez, to attend a political control debate to which he was summoned by the Democratic Center opposition to answer if there are more people illegally intercepted in the country.
In fact, this led to a meeting of more than 5 hours –behind closed doors– between General William Salamanca, director of the Police, and Minister Velásquez, who They reviewed several procedures to try to determine if a listening room located in the west of Bogotá is the key to this whole scandal due to its possible misuse.
The irony of all this is that Petro, Velásquez and other members of his government were victims of the shocking scandal of the chuzadas at the time of the disappeared DAS during the presidency of Álvaro Uribe, and now they are dotted with a similar issue although, at least until now, of much smaller proportions. In addition, during the mandates of Juan Manuel Santos and Iván Duque, similar controversies also came to light due to the improper use of official interception rooms and profiling of journalists and opposition politicians at the time.
In any case, Petro and his Praetorian Guard scrutinize every move they make now; This weekend they even met on certain occasions and exchanged messages via Line – the network that the Head of State uses to communicate with his people – to analyze damage control strategies in case a new media bomb arrives that hits a government that not even Congress wants to walk with force.
And it is that in just 10 months the cabinet has been adjusted twice, the Prosecutor’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office also put the magnifying glass on the possibly irregular movements of Nicolás and Juan Fernando Petro –son and brother, respectively, of the president– and even total peace was punctuated by possible payments from drug traffickers to sneak in.
While that is happening, Petro insists that the Prosecutor, who called him “irresponsible” and who hit him back with the description of “seditious”, must give him a report on the investigations into possible murders by the Clan del Golfo. , something that, as the President says, has not happened. Yes indeed, Barbosa has always defended his management and even the Attorney General, Margarita Cabello -with the judicial branch in full-, has surrounded the independence of the actions of justice that, as with the media, the Head of State gives the impression of wanting to attack.
The case is, before the imminence of a stronger scandal, Petro shields himself with a phrase that has everything from cliché to voters: “Here there can be no stain or even doubt that this government is going to repeat the dirt that other governments did, we do not come here for that “. But, for now, the facts contradict it.
Hard blow to the image of the Head of State
This week was not the best for President Gustavo Petro. It became clear that Congress is not adhering to his reforms, a scandal of hacks took away his right hand in the Government and incidentally knocked down the Ambassador in Venezuela, and a detailed survey was also known in which his unfavorability is skyrocketing. Indeed, In the most recent poll by Invamer Colombia Opina, 59.4% of the 1,200 respondents throughout the country disapprove of his way of governing. And although the measurement corresponds to May, and does not reach what happened after the episode of Laura Sarabia’s ex-nanny, it does leave a halo of high disagreement, since that same item in November 2022 – the last time it had been measured – was at 43%. Colombia Opina applied surveys in the 32 departments and in 57 municipalities, taking villages, small municipalities and capital cities, which allows national photography to be deeper than that of other surveys and for this reason, since Petro is in the House of Nariño, only two have been made. His image is very damaged.
The dossier of the eldest son and the President’s brother
The President’s eldest son, the deputy from Barranquilla, Nicolás Petro, has criminal proceedings against him for possible illicit enrichment after it was denounced that he received money from an ex-narco and from a questioned contractor to finance his father’s presidential campaign, but that In the end, he kept that money. The episode was made public by Day Vásquez, his ex-wife, who said that it would be more than $1,000 million. However, he has not been summoned to the bunker or to the Attorney General’s Office to testify. But the Petro family dossier does not end there. To the brother of the Head of State, Juan Fernando Petro, they are investigating him because of the accusations that up to $500 million would be charged so that drug traffickers can sneak into the so-called total peace. Of course, the two Petros have pleaded not guilty and the President says that he will not intervene.
There are 27 ministers in 301 days of government of change
The Petro Government celebrates 301 days this Sunday since its possession and if something has been unstable it is its cabinet. In this time – counting those who are, those who have moved and the headless – Petro adds a total of 27 ministers, and that in the Culture portfolio still does not have anyone as head. In addition, his ministerial team had a division between left-wing activists and experienced technicians, who came to make private appointments separately to analyze the movements of the opposing side. In the midst of this bid, people of the stature of José Antonio Ocampo, Alejandro Gaviria and Cecilia López came out, but also controversial ones such as Carolina Corcho. In any case, the Head of State demands loyalty from his ministers with his Government program, but the line that he throws at them is little. The question now is who will assume the functions of Laura Sarabia.
Clashes with the Judicial Branch
His fight with the prosecutor Francisco Barbosa touched the spheres of the high courts, as Petro responded to the attacks by the head of the prosecution body with phrases that put judicial independence at risk. That motivated the heads of the Branch to call him to respect the separation of powers. Even, He complained that the Council of State removed elected congressmen from his party, as happened with Roy Barreras, and although he later wanted to make amends by saying that his blow was against the Attorney General’s Office, the damage was done. In addition, on at least two occasions he has stood up magistrates and has spoken of a “soft coup.” What he does not calculate is that he needs the Judicial Branch for the election, the other year, of the Attorney General.
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