President Duque called candidate Gustavo Petro's mining proposal “authoritarianism”

In the midst of the electoral campaign, President Iván Duque has not missed an opportunity to distort several of the candidate's proposals presidential of the Historical Pact, Gustavo Petro. This time, the president referred to his idea of mining and exploitation. However, as usual, he did not mention the name of the senator.

From Nobsa, a municipality in Boyacá, the head of state criticized what the presidential candidate has said that if he comes to power he will suspend contracts for new oil exploration; for Duque, this is “authoritarianism”.

“Mining has often been demonized within what I have called 3P authoritarianism: that it begins to build on post-truth,” Duque said in one of his workshops called 'Constructing country'.

The event took place this Thursday, April 7 from Boyacense territory, in which Duque assured that candidates seeking to end mining use “sophisms” to make up what they really want to do.

“It begins to build on the lie that mining is the enemy of society. They are sophists that seek to end our industry to turn around who knows who,” said the president, while highlighting several of the alleged benefits that this strategy brings to infrastructure in Colombia. “Mining is inherent in many of the human activities,” he said, adding:

Before ending his tirade against Gustavo Petro, the president acknowledged - in the presence of the coal industries of Boyacá - the importance of this material and urged Colombians to be “very careful with those sophists and demagogues that want to end it.” In addition, he ended his speech like this: “What needs to be done is to formalize it and improve environmental and social standards,” said Iván Duque and exemplified other nations that practice mining on the continent.

For now, Gustavo Petro has not addressed the issue or answered who beat him in the second presidential round of 2018. However, those harsh responses add to the fourth time that the president lashes out against who today leads the voting intention for the presidential elections in May.

For example, Duque recently announced that private pension funds agreed to invest an additional 4.5 billion for infrastructure projects in the country, an agreement which the president described as historic and with which he took the opportunity to criticize again the proposal of candidate Petro regarding the administration of the pension system in his possible government, but without mentioning it.

“Why is it important to say all this? Because this investment is for the well-being of Colombians and is also financed responsibly by the savings of Colombians, generating profitability for Colombians and, at the same time, boosting the business, social and economic development of our country, it contributes to the generation of jobs and also contributes to transformation from different regions of our country”, said the president.

During the presidential address, the head of state emphasized that with this new agreement, pension fund investment in infrastructure projects is almost 9 billion (one point of GDP); more than 33 billion in development companies and energy projects, as well as 64 billion more in other sectors of equity investment.

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