The former president of Colombia and head of the Colombian Liberal Party, César Gaviria Trujillo, spent the entire Tuesday meeting with the members of his bench and the elected congressmen, in order to define his position for the first round of the presidential elections.
The liberals did not present their own candidate to the inter-party consultations or the first round, so their decision is still a mystery and takes a lot of interest in terms of electoral strength. In any case, it seems that they have no desire to decide and that they like the attention that their hermeticism gives them.
The first decision the party made is that they will not give freedom to vote at their discretion, but will give their support in the bench. Before opting for a name, they will raise some “red lines” that will be fulfilled by the elected parliamentarians with the endorsement of the Liberal Party and should be followed by the person they support on the way to the presidency.
These principles, which have not been revealed to public opinion either, will be presented during a series of meetings and spiritual retreats to almost all presidential candidates.
According to the announcement of the outgoing House representative and senator-elect Alejandro Vega, “we are not going to accompany the aspiration of candidate Sergio Fajardo, because on several occasions he has stated that he did not need the Liberal Party to win the Presidency of the Republic.”
Apart from Fajardo, all the candidates in the deck are considered by the party and some have already approached Gaviria to present their own projects. This is the case of Gustavo Petro — with whom he already met last February, a month ago — Rodolfo Hernández and Federico Gutiérrez; the latter will meet with Gaviria this Wednesday after an initial postponement.
The party estimates that by the end of Easter, the final decision will be made on the support that its four senators, 32 representatives to the House and two million potential voters would give to a candidate in the first round.
However, some of the attendees of the bench's meetings told media such as La W that there are two major trends within the Liberal Party: those who want a vote for Petro to stop a trend towards continuity and those who ask to vote for Fico to curb the possible economic threat posed by the candidate of the Historical Pact.
César Gaviria's enmity with Sergio Fajardo has long been known. According to Gaviria's statements to the CM& news last January, in 2018 the liberals received Fajardo's rejection of his possible support in the presidential candidacy, who said he did not need it.
In addition, the former president reiterated to Los Danieles this year that he remains firm in that decision, so the party ranks have “disliked” him. In addition, the former president criticizes that, according to him, he has not presented a solid proposal, which makes his victory impossible.
“He has a position lacking critical ideas, proposals and proposing real reforms. He administers a supposed restraint that seems rather an ignorance of the problems of Colombians, for an electoral purpose, in the name and account of a very questionable morality,” Gaviria told El Tiempo.
The former president extended his criticism of the Esperanza Center Coalition, which he described as “made in the image, whim and benefit (of Fajardo) without making a single concrete proposal.” In addition, he said that the former mayor of Medellín has told him that he is “worn out” as president of the party due to lack of liberal support, so he challenged him to see the election results.
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