President Gustavo Petro began on Monday that it can be the longest and most turbulent trip in the remainder of the year and a half of his mandate. It is not about its current diplomatic tour of United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, … that will run until next February 16, but from the Odyssey to rebuild its cabinet after the Council of Ministers of February 4 that triggered the strongest crisis of this government marked by scandals and shocks, and led to the president to ask The protocol resignation of the entire cabinet and directors of entities attached to the presidency.
The crisis began with the transmission to the country, live and direct and for six hours, of an abrupt and unexpected management balance that the president made to his ministers, which were notified of the transmission -but not the crossing of accounts – Shortly before the weekly meeting. Beside him, Petro sat Armando Benedetti, enthroned as head of the office, despite the rejection that several of his ministers had already expressed days before when his return to the government was just a rumor.
The country also expected something else: the decisions of the president and the emergency decrees to address the humanitarian and safety crisis of the Catatumbo, or guidelines in the face of the crisis with the Trump government or the bogged down health reform. In return he received his determination to screw Benedetti.
The trigger
It is important to remember that Armando Benedetti, an advisor to the presidential campaign in 2022, was the one who said in an audio full of insults to the today Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia- according to recordings published by the magazine Semana in 2023- that had entered 15,000 million pesos to the Campaign, which not only exceeded legal stops, but would indicate the illicit origin of those resources. In addition, Benedetti has seven investigations in the Supreme Court of Justice, four open and three in inquiry, and complaints of domestic violence and misogyny.
The next day, with an still dumbfounded cabinet for the day and the presence of Benedetti, and a stunned country witness to the fracture of the government and suspect in the face of the president’s stubborn to keep it by his side, the resignations began to arrive, even of his closer allies, unleashing a debate between the leadership of the historical pact, left -wing coalition that led him to power and that is essential to pass the reforms presented by the Government, as well as for the electoral process.
And now what?
What can expect? The protocol renunciations are on the table. It is speculated that those of their Ministers of Defense, Justice and Mines and Energy will be accepted; In the air that of Foreign Minister Sarabia, who accompanies him on his journey through the Middle East.
And another crisis with the new allegations of illicit financing of the 2022 presidential campaign with money from a smuggling capo, Diego Marín Buitrago, aka ‘Dad Smuron the way to be extradited from Portugal and who delivered an advance of 500 million pesos (about 120,000 euros), effectively received by the Spanish Xavier Vendrellaccording to the report published by the magazine ‘Change’, and that President Petro recognized, not without clarifying that they were returned. But why not reported? We will know in the next chapter of this ‘reality’ that you just start.
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