The presence of presidential candidate Federico Gutiérrez at the National Congress of Municipalities, held this week in Cartagena, has aroused all kinds of suspicions. Not only was it frowned upon that some local leaders openly showed their support for the Team's contender for Colombia, but the rest of the candidates for the Casa de Nariño were conspicuous by their absence from the Julio César Turbay Ayala Convention Center.
In addition to the fact that some leaders cheered for the former mayor of Medellín, asked to pose for photographs with them and even promised to put votes in favor of him, it caused concern that the invitation to Federico Gutiérrez and him alone to this event — paid for with State resources — had been planned in advance to favor it.
This was made known by Segundo Gil, mayor of Colón (Nariño), in a video that he uploaded to his social networks as a denunciation. He assured that Fedemunicios had said that he invited all the candidates; however, Gil did not believe that version.
When candidate Gutiérrez was asked about his reasons for attending the National Congress of Municipalities, he replied:
Gutierrez did not imagine that he would be denied by the rest of the presidential candidates. One example is the candidate for the left-wing coalition Historical Pact, Gustavo Petro Urrego. From Medellín, where he began his agenda having breakfast with journalists, the former mayor of Bogotá acknowledged that he had been invited the day before to the Cartagena event, which he finally did not attend because he already had an agenda in the capital of Antioquia and gave it priority.
For his part, the candidate of the Christian movement Colombia Justa Libres, John Milton Rodríguez, sent a video response to W Radio in which he stated that he had not even been invited to the Fedemunicipios event. He assured that it is not justifiable that not all applicants have been summoned.
In fact, at the time when Federico Gutiérrez spoke in Cartagena, candidates Rodríguez, Ingrid Betancourt, Luis Pérez, Enrique Gomez and Sergio Fajardo were in the Canal Capital studios in Bogotá, participating in the debate organized by Colombia's public regional channels.
Except for Sergio Fajardo — to whom they left the invitation of Fedemunicios in a question form on their website — none of the other candidates said they had been called to the Cartagena event.
In fact, through a video on his social networks, Fajardo himself reproached that neither Federico Gutiérrez nor Gustavo Petro had taken part in this important debate.
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