Journalists, writers and former ministers sign letter in support of Sergio Fajardo

A letter signed by several journalists, writers, artists, businessmen, teachers and former ministers, among others, has been circulating in recent hours. In it, the signatories express their support for Sergio Fajardo, the presidential candidate from the Centro Esperanza coalition, and assure that their commitment is for change. His wish is for the country to take a different course, at last. They reject the “extremes” represented by the Historical Pact and the division around Federico Gutiérrez.

The letter reads: “The extremes want us to believe that the only alternative is to vote for the continuity of Uribe-Duque-Fico or for the uncertainty that Petro's populism represents. They're wrong! (...) Today, seven out of ten Colombians want change. That alternative, that change, is represented by Sergio Fajardo who calls for a serene, determined and conciliatory force that will allow us to build a better country at this crucial moment in our history.”

The signatories ask Colombians to vote in the first round of the presidential elections, on May 29, for the duo Sergio Fajardo - Luis Gilberto Murillo. “The experienced team of the coalition that supports the Fajardo-Murillo formula is the answer to the country's demand for accelerated modernization of the State, so that it efficiently and without waste provide collective goods that rescue the human dignity of those who have been ignored by institutions and sink into despair and poverty”.

There are several names in favor of the candidate, about 280. Recently, one more would have joined: Senator Horacio José Serpa who attended the Fajardo campaign committee's installation event in Bogotá to ratify his support and make it official. “We are going to commit to the transformation of the country. Let's look forward and not to the extremes. Let's not stay with the buts, that's no use to us. Right now we have the opportunity to unite an entire country to consolidate peace in every corner of Colombia,” he later wrote on his networks.

He insisted on the fact that Fajardo can work for peace and reiterated that it is the most appropriate option to avoid further fueling polarization. “Our country needs to elect a person who understands that in a divided and fractured country changes are achieved with consensus, and not with impositions or hatreds, people in the streets question themselves, but one is going to expropriate, but the other is not change, but it is that another is going to steal pensions, but if it never reaches the top is going to leave power, but nothing. Let us end polarization and work together on a political project for the transformation of the country, let us vote for the professor, the statesman, the human being who demonstrates by his actions that he is capable of generating consensus in society and executing the programs of his government after being elected by a majority, without the other side leading him to the public bonfire,” he said.

Among the signatories, these are some of the names:

José Antonio Ocampo, former minister and professor at the University of Columbia

Juan Gabriel Vasquez, writer

Rodrigo Pardo, former chancellor and journalist

Maria Angela Holguin, former chancellor

Gabriel Silva, former Minister of Defense and former ambassador

Carlos Caballero Argáez, economist and columnist

Gustavo Bell Lemus, former Vice President of the Republic

Doris Salcedo, artist

Vladdo, cartoonist and journalist

Juanita Goebertus, former congressman

Mercy Bonnett, writer, columnist

Pilar Gaitan, former vice-chancellor and internationalist

Beatriz Quintero García, feminist activist engineer

Maria Teresa Garces, lawyer, former constituent

Mauricio Garcia Villegas, professor

Manuel Rodríguez, former Minister of Environment, National Environmental Forum

Alonso Salazar, writer and former mayor of Medellín

Rosa Inés Ospina, feminist activist

Mabel Lara, journalist

The full letter can be read here.

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