Senator María Fernanda Cabal agreed with the decision of Oscar Iván Zuluaga, candidate of the Democratic Center, who decided to decline her candidacy to support Federico Gutiérrez, although she reiterated that this is a personal action that does not compromise the party.
Zuluaga won the internal consultation that that collective held in November 2021 to decide the presidential candidate. She surpassed Cabal in results that were questioned by the senator and reluctantly recognized with little public support from her part.
Even the message of resignation of the candidacy was one of the few that Cabal de Zuluaga shared on its social networks, precisely to qualify it with positive adjectives and clarify that it has no impact on the party, which will meet this Tuesday to make a decision; although it is believed that it will take the same path.
“The decision of Oscar Iván Zuluaga, candidate of the Democratic Center, to join the campaign of Federico Gutiérrez, is right and he is thinking first of the homeland rather than of individual vanities and egos. In good time,” Cabal said through social networks.
The Democratic Center lost several seats in the legislative elections. After having led the Congress for two terms, in this new quadrennium he will have 14 seats in the Senate and 16 in the House and went down to the fifth and fourth polling places respectively. Those results would have been answered by the decision of Zuluaga that decided to support the winner of the Team for Colombia consultation.
“Oscar Iván Zuluaga's personal decision to renounce his candidacy does not compromise the Democratic Center. The bench meets tomorrow (March 15) under the immense responsibility of analyzing the situation and defining the best path to interpret its membership,” added Senator Cabal.
Despite the legislative results, the two most voted senators were from the Democratic Center, Cabal the second after the top of the list Miguel Uribe. “The Homeland is above personal choices. I have fought every battle to prevent the neo-communism that Petro represents and the Historical Pact, today with 16 seats, from affecting our freedoms. It's time to build a great convergence,” she added.
Gutiérrez has not commented on the annexation of Zuluaga's support for his candidacy. In a statement he said that he will seek to add support, among which he mentioned Álvaro Uribe and the Democratic Center, as well as the Liberal, Conservative and Radical Change party.
The entry of the Democratic Center to the Team by Colombia, Gutiérrez's coalition, had been rejected by several of the members such as Alejandro Char and Dilian Francisca Toro, so Zuluaga could not compete. For that reason, the party had sought that its members did not participate in that vote on March 13, but several of its members, including President Iván Duque, did so on that card.
It is also important that Zuluaga, despite being the sole candidate chosen by former President Uribe's party, does not link his party in the political decisions he takes and his membership is announced as a personal action, so internal fractures continue and will be part of the future of the collective.
For example, Maria Fernanda Cabal's son, Juan José Lafaurie, who entered politics by joining the Conservative party, also reacted to Zuluaga's resignation, recalling the disagreement that his election over the senator generated. “Once the task is done, the envoy leaves. She fulfilled her goal of preventing Cabal from winning her fico very well, she was the only one capable of doing so,” she wrote on her social networks.
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