Roy Barreras told Federico Gutiérrez that he was given a 'chance' to get a better vice president

The coalition of the Historical Pact, led by Gustavo Francisco Petro, has already had a first reaction to the announcement of the Colombian right-wing candidate, Federico Gutiérrez, where he reported that his vice-presidential formula will be Rodrigo Lara Sánchez, former mayor of Neiva (Huila) and son of the murdered minister of the same name who lost his life in his fight against the Medellín Cartel.

In defiant words, through his official Twitter account, the senator-elect of that collective, Roy Barreras, told the candidate of Team Colombia that they gave him the opportunity to get a better vice president on Monday.

“Fico, playing to lose is cheating! Make it harder for us! You won't win even in Neiva where with the Historical Pact we just defeated Uribism. We give him a chance until Monday to put a less weak formula. It helped him: Cabal? Macias? EPA Colombia?” , the repeated congressman triumphed.

Barreras also retweeted a publication by the activist and former candidate for the seat abroad for the Historical Pact, Franklin Humberto Coral Garrido, better known as Beto Coral, where he expressed his disappointment that Lara Sánchez had allied with Gutiérrez, who has the backing of former President Uribe.

“Rodrigo Lara denounced the existence of the largest cocaine laboratory in the world, where Álvaro Uribe's father's helicopter was found. Who years earlier approved licenses for drug traffickers. Lara was murdered and today her son is the formula of the bishop of Uribe, of the narcotrafficking”, Coral tribe.

But Barreras continued his attack and posted a photo in which Gutiérrez's formula stands in front of a shelf without books.

“Another suggestion: Don't notice the empty library. Fico's ignorance is enough...”, he attacked again in his Twitter thread.

He finally told him that the former mayor of Neiva would be a congressman anyway, hinting again that they will be defeated at the polls by Petro.

“And a prophecy: Dr. Lara Sánchez will be Representative to the House 2022-2026 thanks to the Statute of the Opposition. You will have every guarantee,” concluded the senator-elect.

Who is Lara Sanchez?

The former mayor of Neiva is the eldest son of Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, who was President Belisario Betancur's Minister of Justice and the first high-ranking public figure to murder the Medellín Cartel, a crime that was perpetrated on June 30, 1984 in northern Bogotá. He is the half-brother of Congressman Rodrigo Lara Restrepo, but Lara Sanchez did not have the life of a minister's son. He was barely able to meet his father twice and was not recognized by him in life.

According to an interview he gave to Semana Magazine, while the Lara Restrepo were able to study at universities in the capital's elite and abroad, Lara Sánchez and her mother, Lilia Sánchez, had to fight even to receive their paternal surname, which they only received until 2000 with DNA testing.

Rodrigo Lara Sánchez is a graduate of a public school and a surgeon with a specialization in General Surgery from the University of Cauca, also public. He dedicated much of his life to medical service in hospitals in Bogotá and Neiva.

His foray into politics is rather recent. In 2010 he tried to reach the Senate through the Citizen Commitment list, the same movement led by Sergio Fajardo, the candidate of the Center Hope Coalition. It had the ninth highest vote, but the significant group of citizens did not exceed the threshold to win seats.

During Antanas Mockus' presidential campaign in 2010, Rodrigo Lara Sánchez joined the Green Party and coordinated the campaign in Huila. Then, in 2016, he became the mayor of Neiva in the same period that Fico was mayor of the Antioquia capital, with the sympathy of characters such as Antonio Navarro Wolff, Enrique Peñalosa and Mockus himself.

Part of his campaign to become president of the Huilense capital was based on pointing out the mistakes of his predecessor, Pedro Suárez, of the U Party, against whom he had lost the 2011 election and who was pointed out by the Attorney General's Office for cost overruns in the remodeling of the Guillermo Plazas Alcid stadium.

From the Mayor's Office of Neiva, he focused on improving the health and education of his municipality and received several awards for his management. A mole in his administration was the collapse of a stand in the aforementioned stadium, which left four dead and ten injured. Then, Rodrigo Lara Sánchez entered the investigations for cost overruns, but was eventually acquitted.

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