“His joke is very bad”: Fajardo on charges by Federico Gutiérrez about an alleged link with Petro

On March 21, the presidential debate organized by RCN was held, in which candidates Federico Gutiérrez, Sergio Fajardo, Ingrid Betancourt and Enrique Gómez participated. At the same time, the absence of Gustavo Petro, who announced that he would suspend his participation in the debates, and that of Rodolfo Hernández, who is outside the country, was highlighted.

Among the various topics that were discussed during the debate, Gustavo Petro remained a constant despite his absence. Thus, Federico Gutiérrez did not miss the opportunity to throw a punch at Sergio Fajardo, assuring that the candidate of Centro Esperanza has an alleged link with the aspirant of the Historical Pact.

“Something that has been happening in this debate is that Petro did not come, but he has a spokesperson who is Sergio Fajardo. To him I say: it is time to let go of egos and vanities, the country is above”, Gutiérrez said.

Faced with this statement, Fajardo took advantage of one of his interventions to make it clear that this was not the case. “I like Federico very much, for a long time, but I've heard bad jokes and his. That I am the spokesman for Gustavo Petro, what do you think! They probably passed it on the iPad or the cell phone, but that's a very bad joke,” commented the candidate from Centro Esperanza.

Following this, he explained why such a link does not exist. “I have been in confrontation with him, who has insulted me in every way possible for voting blank four years ago and saying that I would never vote for him as President of the Republic,” argued the presidential candidate. “I have always faced his mistreatment, so that now he comes up with that bad joke.” At the same time, he was emphatic that if he is presenting his proposals it is precisely to “beat (Petro) in the second round”.

Fajardo's intervention did not end there, as he threw a bulla at Gutiérrez regarding the results of the recent Grand Survey. “Federico was given asteroids in the consultation because Uribe said that we should vote for him,” said the candidate from Centro Esperanza.

Faced with that, the candidate for Team for Colombia answered him the following: “If there are sectors of the country that want to accompany me, they are welcome. A lot of the people who accompanied me were with you before. I accompanied you in the past in the mayor's office of Medellin and that's not why I'm bad.”

It should be recalled that Fajardo's statement arises after learning the results of the Great Survey, the survey carried out by Yanhass for Noticias RCN, La República, R CN Radio and La FM.

The Cordovan leads the voting intention with 37% favourability, growing by 10 percentage points compared to the measurement; while Federico Gutiérrez was one of the big surprises with a considerable growth of 16%, since before the elections on March 14, he had a vote rate of 3%.

Why didn't Gustavo Petro attend the debate?

The presidential candidate of the Historical Pact announced on Monday that his presence in the debates will be suspended until “transparency of the vote is guaranteed” in the country. “We will act with the utmost prudence and call on international oversight to act promptly. At the moment there is no transparent chain of custody on the votes already counted,” said the candidate, after his coalition became the force with the most representatives in the Senate.

The words of the candidate for the Historical Pact are related to the recent announcement of the national registrar, Alexander Vega, who requested a general recount of the votes for the Senate before the Electoral Guarantees Commission, due to the repeated questioning of different communities and candidates about the obvious irregularities in legislative elections.

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