This is how the different political fronts reacted to the rapprochement of Ingrid Betancourt with Álvaro Uribe Vélez

Election campaigns are underway and the different political parties are carrying out their different strategies for the elections on May 29. One thing that is clear is that dialogues and approaches with different political fronts could be key to achieving some votes, however, what happened recently with candidate Ingrid Betancourt and former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez as protagonist, was something that not many imagined would happen. As expected, many criticized the approach.

The rapprochement of the candidate by the Green Oxygen party with the former president and leader of the Democratic Center continues to generate controversy and many political fronts have spoken out about this. Recall that in an interview with Semana, the now presidential candidate stated that, “I owe my freedom and my life to President Uribe. That is, obviously we can also look at it from another perspective and say: 'Yes, but it took seven years'. Actually, I owe him my life. In other words, if Operation Jaque had not been carried out, it is possible that at first I was not alive and it is also possible that Colombia would not have achieved this space of peace that came about with the agreement that we can obviously criticize, disagree, but it did change the Colombian ecosystem.”

In a trill, former President Álvaro Uribe said he was, “grateful to Dr. Ingrid Betancourt. It is very important to advance the dialogue with her, her team and the Democratic Center,” to which she replied, “in order to free Colombia from corruption it is important that we unite beyond ideologies. From the center we are open to a great national dialogue and I call for a common front against machinery and for reconciliation.”

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This generated enormous controversy from different political sectors, Alejandro Gaviria, the pre-candidate of the Centro Esperanza coalition, left a short and strong message on Twitter: “Hypocritical and opportunist”, to which Ingrid Betancourt responded, “this is the culture of violence and intolerance that leads to justifying accommodation with the corruption. The machines, they don't have ideologies. Today with one, tomorrow with the other. Didn't you learn your lesson?”

The Green Oxygen party and its congressmen Daniel Carvhalo and Humberto de la Calle reacted to these approaches between Betancourt and Uribe, so through a statement they reproached the candidate's decision and asked her to establish democratic methods within the party for this decision-making. “It is clearly incoherent to seek alliances with parties such as the Democratic Center. In this case, we are also emphatic in saying that the ideas of former President Uribe thoroughly contradict our convictions and vision of the country.”

And they ask the presidential candidate to “convene the internal and democratic organs of the party, before making one-person decisions and inconsultations, as has happened on other occasions.”

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Ingrid Betancourt, who has been very active on his social networks, responded through this medium to David Carvhalo and Humberto de la Calle and stated that “it is surprising that when they want to be with Sergio they don't want to be part of the party and when they want to neutralize the party's strategy, now they are from here. We are calling for a major national pact against corruption, where are you?”

María José Pizarro, senator of the Historical Pact, also spoke about this situation and assured that, “For @IBetancourtCol the border is all the “machines” except those of uribism, regrettable! As far as the country knows, we will defeat Uribism and its retrograde and corrupt hegemony.”

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