Katherine Miranda: the freedom of the greens to vote in the first round was a unanimous decision

The Green Alliance party, one of the strongest alternative movements in the country, entered constant contests due to the selection of presidential candidate and coalition. Despite the disagreements, they managed to specify that for the legislatures their list of Congress would be unified with Centro Esperanza, but for the presidential elections the clashes continued because for some the ideal candidate is Gustavo Petro, for another group it is Sergio Fajardo and support for Rodolfo Hernández also appeared.

Finally, after lengthy discussions, the green directives concluded that they would release their members in the first round and that in the second round they would finally support a single candidacy. Katherine Miranda told RCN Radio that the decision was taken unanimously.

“We are very happy because the Green Alliance Party unanimously and in complete harmony took the decision to release them for the first presidential round,” the congressman noted, adding: “It should be borne in mind that we could only support candidates like Rodolfo Hernández, Gustavo Petro or Sergio Fajardo. In the second round, the Green Party will come complete and unified to support the alternative candidacy that arrives.”

Let us remember that on March 24, the members of the alternative movement met and Carlos Ramón González, co-president of the party, noted that the important thing is to overcome uribist continuity: “What is clear here is that we must defeat the Uribista right that today embodies candidate Fico Gutiérrez”, and that the candidate of the Team for Colombia represents “the authoritarian right, the history of false positives, corruption and politics in Colombia”.

Despite everything, the picture changed on March 26, because despite the guidelines already set out by the Green Party, its member Rodrigo Lara Sánchez joined Federico Gutiérrez as its vice-presidential formula and this brings with it many questions, which so far the collective has not come out to clarify. It is expected that, given the idea of a selection among “alternatives”, there will be no support from the Alliance for the candidate of Team for Colombia.

Rodrigo Lara Sánchez, the vice-presidential formula of Fico Gutiérrez

In an event from the San Javier station of the Medellín Metro, the city of which he was mayor between 2016 and 2019, presidential candidate Federico Gutiérrez put an end to the mystery this Saturday about the name of his vice-presidential formula.

This is Rodrigo Lara Sánchez, the eldest son of Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, who was President Belisario Betancur's Minister of Justice at the time of his assassination. Lara Sánchez is a surgeon with a specialization in General Surgery and was mayor of Neiva in the same period when Fico was mayor of the capital of Antioquia.

“In Neiva people want him because he is a great human being and because he was a great mayor. The country is going to meet Rodrigo and fall in love with him because of his essence,” said Federico Gutiérrez.

Lara Sánchez's foray into political life is rather recent, because she devoted much of her life to medical services in hospitals in Bogotá and Neiva. In 2010 he tried to reach the Senate through the Citizen Commitment list, the same movement of Sergio Fajardo. It had the ninth highest vote, but the significant group of citizens did not exceed the threshold to win seats.

The appointment as vice-presidential formula of Rodrigo Lara Sánchez could be a nod to the center voters, given the closeness he has shown during this decade to Sergio Fajardo and Antanas Mockus, whose presidential campaign he joined in 2010.

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