2023-06-11 07:01:00
The fall of Laura Sarabia as direct damage from the leaks of the privacy of the presidential campaign with the audios of Armando Benedetti led to an internal war in the Casa de Nariño that President Gustavo Petro himself attends with tweezers to prevent it from growing.
And although it is not at the level of the one that starred in their former chief of staff and former ambassador to Venezuelait does touch the fibers of the circle closest to the Head of State to the point that he himself reassessed the relevance of concentrating so much power in a single office like the one that Sarabia managed and is pending what movements derive from everything that Benedetti has been counting , including the audios about the phantom $15,000 million that would have entered his campaign.
When asked officially, they all deny that this is happening in the Palace – and even point out that efforts are focused on highlighting the appearance alive of the 4 indigenous children in the jungles of Guaviare – but outside these offices there are not a few people who agree to give the same details.
This bid in the Palace, to be the person who speaks to the President, has three protagonists, and all of them somehow work together, but they also look at each other with suspicion because of the power that whoever remains as Petro’s right-hand man may have. They have even been seen more frequently by that Casa de Nariño that no longer has as much movement as in past administrations and that not a few sectors already qualify as being a cold place, alone. Petro often prefers to coordinate everything from his private home, accompanied by the First Lady, Verónica Alcocer.who also has a strong role in all this rearrangement.
On one side is Vladimir Fernández, legal secretary of the Presidency, an externadista lawyer who has been in the Government since August 7 and who, after the fall of Sarabia, has stuck to the President to remind him of his schedule, set appointments and even give him some advice on who he can or should talk to. And although he does not abandon his functions as the main jurist of the Casa de Nariño, he has sought greater brilliance with the president.
Some unofficial versions even say that he has moved with the intention of moving his office from the rooms on the second and third floors of the Palace to the one next to the presidential office, that is, to the one occupied by Sarabia. Fernández, in any case, remains available for whatever role they tell him to play, because, according to sources from the Casa de Nariño itself, he does not abandon his idea of being on Petro’s shortlist for Attorney General, which is He plans to present in December.
This has allowed him, together with his experience, to be a kind of bridge between the Head of State and the Judicial Branch, the same one that the president mistreats from time to time with hard darts that he throws at the courts, the same Prosecutor’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office. . He has even had to fight the magistrates when Petro stands them up and strongly support the work of the Ministry of Justice led by Néstor Osuna.
Another person who over the last 5 days has been paying close attention to the Casa de Nariño, getting closer to Petro and trying to call him through the Line application (at the Palace they don’t speak on WhatsApp), is Carlos Ramón González, who just a month ago landed in the Administrative Department of the Presidency (Dapre)the office that runs the palace bureaucracy.
González has been a personal friend of Petro’s for decades and they served together in the extinct M-19 guerrilla. In addition, he is one of the few people left in the President’s inner circle who knows political millimeters, dialogue with parties and how to convince congressmen through contractual favors to support government initiatives. This has even brought him closer to the Capitol and to the Ministry of the Interior led by Luis Fernando Velasco, with whom, some say, he makes a good match.
Although she is no longer officially part of Alianza Verde, a party she founded since the M-19 mutated into political life, and she maintains constant contact with leaders of that group such as the mayoress of Bogotá, Claudia López, and congresswomen Angélica Lozano and Katerine Miranda, her influence over that party is still maintained. Some voices affirm that it is thanks to this leadership that, despite the criticism launched by some of its members, the Greens remain in the official coalition.
And a third protagonist, who also comes from the ranks of the M-19, is the current director of the National Protection Unit (UNP), Augusto Rodríguezwho in the last week has been closer to Petro and has taken advantage of the fact that he has a lot of confidence in him to talk to him about future scenarios for the Government.
Some say that the radicalization of Petro’s speech has to do with the dialogues he has with Rodríguez, and that even the phrase “minister who ignores him, leaves” came from the advice given by his director of the UNP. This means that she wants more petrism in his cabinet and that new ministerial changes are not ruled out, especially since certain leaders of key portfolios were not at the marches this Wednesday.
However, none of the three has taken a public role and they have preferred to keep a low profile, each making use of the influence they can have over Petro in their own way. Of course, especially the first two, they helped Minister Velasco to ensure that in the council of ministers last Monday everyone applauded him when he arrived. That day the only one who did not get up to applaud was Vice President Francia Márquez, who is said to still be upset with the Head of State for the shelving in which she had her Ministry of Equality.
However, they proposed to the President that he bring Alfonso Prada (now ambassador to France) to the head of the Cabinet, something he already did during the administration of Juan Manuel Santos from a similar position, or that he propose to Susana Muhamad that she leave the Ministry of the Environment to settle in the office next to the presidential office, a role he has also known since he accompanied Petro in the Bogotá Mayor’s Office. But he himself said that he does not want to give that position so much profile in order to expand the dialogue with the cabinet and stop concentrating functions in a single agency.
Another name that sounded, but that seems not to stick very well, is that of Daniel Rojas, current director of the Special Assets Society (SAE). He coordinated the entire construction of the Petro government plan in the campaign, and he is a young figure like Sarabia was, but he does not have an easy income among the political class that the President needs right now to try to save his controversial reforms.
The truth is that, while this bid leads to a rearrangement, Petro radicalizes his positions much more, strongly attacking the institutions and those who oppose him, but if he does not control this silent war that is being waged in the apartments surrounding his office, he will It could be exacerbated by a major crisis that definitively leaves his administration on the defensive during the remaining three years. And more controversies come to him.
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