“Petro wants to change the Constitution to become a dictator”: Enrique Gómez, the “conservative and right-wing” candidate

Much of the presidential campaign of candidate Gustavo Petro has been based on the slogan of the agreement on the fundamentals enacted by the assassinated Conservative leader (in 1993) Álvaro Gómez Hurtado. However, although it would be thought that the aspirant of the Historical Pact is the one who seeks to raise the flags of the politician who killed the former FARC, his legacy today is embodied - or at least so affirms - his nephew, Bogotá lawyer Enrique Gómez Martínez.

The 54-year-old litigator was the first Colombian to register his candidacy to compete for the Presidency of the Republic with the National Salvation Movement, the same one that Gómez Hurtado founded before his assassination and which, in late 2021, revived the Constitutional Court, giving him the green light to compete in legislative elections and executives this year.

With just over 30,000 votes, the newly re-founded community did not win a single seat in the Congress of the Republic and now, Enrique Gómez's current commitment is to reach Casa de Nariño as president, with vehement positions against abortion and betting on a comprehensive reform of justice and the educational model, distant of the positions of Colombian progressivism. This is what the presidential candidate for the Infobae team told him. This is the interview:

Infobae: How do you feel to see that you are beginning to get recognition in networks and the press in Colombia for standing outside the premises of the newspaper El Colombiano to be allowed to enter a presidential debate?

Enrique Gómez (E.G.): That is the only alternative we can find to transmit our ideas and those of the National Salvation Movement. Since I announced my candidacy on November 2, we have been faced with this significant problem that the big national press, not all, but most, decide that I do not have the right to participate in the debates or to confront my ideas with those of the other candidates. This not only violates a little bit the principle of political participation envisaged in the Constitution, but it also closes the doors to citizens to know different visions.

I contacted the directives of El Colombiano and Red+ Noticias and they said 'we can't have it because we don't have the cameras, we don't have the way to do it and you don't appear in the polls'. (Gustavo) Petro left them hanging on the brush and even in that circumstance, when I was at the door, willing, ready to participate, did they not have the democratic capacity to let me in.

Infobae: You said you are the candidate of the conservative right. What differentiates it from candidate Federico Gutiérrez, who also represents a sector of that ideology?

E.G.: I have never seen and I challenge him to tell me in what scenarios or stages of Federico Gutiérrez's political career he has said that he is a right-wing conservative. That is not true, and never on the essential points of the conservative agenda does he have that position. That's fine and he's entitled to that, but that he's the candidate? No.

Infobae: But he has the support of the Conservative, the U and other sectors of that ideology...

E.G.: The (former) candidate Barguil submitted to just that and I have openly criticized him. More than 20 years ago in Colombia there was not even a conservative candidate in the first round of the elections, the last conservative president in Colombia was Andrés Pastrana. We are convinced that the time has come for the conservative.

I don't have any coincidences with Federico in the matter of pensions or public debt payments. Senator John Milton Rodriguez is also a man very committed to the ideas of the right and he is also denied. I wonder, is that really what works for the Colombian people? Let the press pick up and decide what options can be heard and who can't? That's unconstitutional.

Infobae: National Salvation won just over 30,000 votes in the legislatures. Do you think that's the reason why the press doesn't give you balls?

E.G.: It was not the result we expected. We started with the court against, playing from the top, without state support. We had ten days to form the lists. Our candidates had no political experience because we have tried to bring renewal and alternative. Then came that very severe blockade that I am denouncing from the press about myself as party director and as presidential candidate. What I feel is that you want me to be unknown, not only because of my ability to generate proposals, but because of the content of my ideas and that is very wrong.

Infobae: How does that affect you for the first presidential round?

E.G.: If I cannot negotiate the advance payment with the Ministry of Finance, the worse. I had to go to a guardianship for the advance payment (of the elections) to Congress and when I get (the money from the advance) they demand a policy that no insurance company in Colombia wants to issue. Everyone receives money from the State. My closest competitor, which is the Commons Party, received 9 billion pesos in operating expenses for the campaign. They announced to me that they will give me 287 million and they give it to me in December.

Infobae: Have you thought about withdrawing your candidacy?

E.G.: Why? I have rights and the Constitution gives me the right to participate in politics. The Constitutional Court recognized that right because the National Salvation Movement collapsed because of the unpunished murder of its leader (Álvaro Gómez Hurtado). Now they tell me 'how is it not going well for you: withdraw. ' I don't agree and I don't see life that way. I believe that one should pursue one's ideals and my ideal is that politics is not right.

The Court says that we should have received special treatment because we were in the last years to compete with parties of the stature of the Conservative, the Democratic Center, the Liberal, the U, Radical Change, parties that you see settled with resources, with ancient leadership throughout the country. And everyone goes out to say 'hey, how bad was it, didn't it? ' What a cynicism. There is discrimination against right-wing ideas and against right-wing people in Colombia.

Infobae: In that vein, how do you represent the legacy of your uncle Álvaro Gómez Hurtado and your grandfather, former President Laureano Gómez?

E.G.: Doing political work based on convincing, transparency, trying to choose the best profiles for candidates, trying not to fall into the practices of bad politics and fight. My uncle never had it easy, until his death.

Infobae: What is the point of an eventual government of Enrique Gómez?

E.G.: The comprehensive reform of justice. A political reform to end this rampant corruption that the system has and the search for a productive transformation in two facets: huge investment and infrastructure, stop throwing money on people through monetary subsidies and investing in economic development that makes Colombian companies competitive.

We must end Fecode and create a school voucher that allows parents to choose the school that best suits their children.

Infobae: If you were president, what action would you take in relation to the Constitutional Court's decision to decriminalize abortion until the 24th week of pregnancy?

E.G.: Propose a constitutional reform so that article 11 protects and ensures that life is inviolable from conception to natural death and remove any ambiguity that allows the Court to come to legalize the killing of children who are about to be born. That is crazy what has happened here and that is our agenda on the pro-life issue.

How does one person have a right over the life of another being? A society that takes that step ethically and morally is destroyed and that is what is happening to Colombian society; it also leads to irresponsibility. In the world there can be no more methods of contraception, which are available, even free of charge, and what this sentence rewards is the irresponsibility of the father and mother of the unborn child.

The baby is in the woman's body, but it is not part of the woman's body, it is another different being and is a valuable being for society on an ethical, moral and legal level. That position for us that one can decide to kill another is the beginning of the end of values and the destruction of society.

Infobae: On what grounds would you support abortion?

E.G.: There were the three grounds of the old code of the 80, which were relevant, but the cause of risk to the mother's life became king of mockery, because now there are abortion clinics all over the country, which falsely certify psychological trauma as a ground for murdering a child who is about to be born, then the return to those causal has to be very carefully.

Infobae: What steps will you take to promote a culture of sex education, given that the numbers of teenage pregnancies continue to skyrocket?

E.G.: The statistics on abortion deaths are all quite questionable. I don't think that clandestinity is the factor that is affecting these mothers. That is the Trojan horse that has generated the abortion movement in the country.

The more sexual relations, the more pregnancies. That is the ethic we have created, where there is no responsibility for individual behavior and for one's own sexuality. We have a bad culture in the humblest classes: what impedes the effectiveness of contraception methods is the macho position of boys who demand that women stop planning in order to prove their manhood. This suggests a gap in our education; that is why we have proposed returning education in values, the historical, social and formative education that radical Marxist unions have banned from public education.

The solution is not to kill the one who is about to be born. What you need is to give it management. We must support these women who have adolescent or preadolescent pregnancies. Nor can older women come to say now that they are not responsible for their sexuality and that is why they have the right to murder the life that is here inside their bodies.

Infobae: Let's move on to another topic. Would you rule out your candidacy to join Federico Gutiérrez's?

E.G.: No. As we suffer increasingly from exclusion and the veto, we are convinced of the importance of having a conservative candidate in the first round and that is why we hope to maintain our candidacy until May 29.

The electoral process has been distorted through these interparty consultations; we now have a three-round election that only aims to restrict the number of options for the Colombian people. That is a clear manifestation of the political regime that has destroyed the country.

There is no longer a policy of ideas here, there is no policy of doctrines. You find the candidate of the radical left surrounded by the most frightening politicians in the history of the country, who have done transfugianism for all political movements.

Infobae: Who is the candidate of the radical left?

E.G.: Mr. (Gustavo) Petro. He is the communist candidate who comes and publicly and openly declares that he is going to expropriate the savings of the workers, that he is going to expropriate property. He is a communist candidate, but he has no intellectual coherence because he is sitting with Alvaro Uribe's former allies. He wants to sit on tablecloths with Mr. César Gaviria to eat the pig of the State, which was the promoter of the neoliberal opening. What consistency do you see in that?

Infobae: In that vein, how do you analyze a possible Petro government? He is the candidate who is leading the voting intention and was the winner of last Sunday's consultations.

E.G.: A disaster for the country. A man who in the administration of Bogotá not only demonstrated his inability as manager and manager, but also showed that he cared about five to preserve ethics. More than 20 of his officials were penalized and convicted for very serious cases of corruption.

The man with the machine covers gaps, the abandoned trucks, the man who left the city flooded with garbage, the man who couldn't finish the Tintal hospital, the man who couldn't do the pedestrianization of the Seventh race and wants to make a flying train. He is a man who wants to end the right to property and wants to change the Constitution to become a dictator. Surrounded by Roy Barreras, Armando Benedetti and Luis Pérez, what a horror. That's what destroyed the country. He's a guy who's been a senator for 20 years. Bad government and danger to the country.

Infobae: So he doesn't see any chance of winning...

E.G.: I don't believe in either the first or the second round. Colombians know and understand what he represents and are dissatisfied. I understand that he represents an option of change and rupture. The conservative thing is not breaking up. The conservative thing is not to destroy. The conservative thing is to build on what exists, incorporating change to reach a better society. These gentlemen who are like Petro saying that they are the holders of the truth and who know what each citizen should and should not do, without the tendency to anything other than their own ego, are a great risk to democracy.

Infobae: Why vote for Enrique Gómez in the first round?

E.G.: If you want to take to the streets again, if you want legal security, citizen security, if you want food security, if you want transformation in urgent education so that children are not illiterate and if you want a country in peace and a safe country, vote for National Salvation, vote and support Enrique Gómez on May 29th.

KEEP READING: