Former President Uribe went again against the presidency of Iván Duque: “This government has not been endeared”

Former President Álvaro Uribe and the Democratic Center have no candidate of their own nor have they formally stated which presidential candidate they will support, although the options are limited. According to the former president, the reason is based on the impact on his image and the low popularity of Iván Duque's government.

His candidate, Oscar Iván Zuluaga, did not last more than a week after the results of the legislative elections and consultations when he abandoned the campaign to join Federico Gutiérrez, who will also be supported, as former President Uribe told the Caracol Radio station, most members of the Centro party will also support Democratic.

However, he clarified that no official decision has been announced because the grassroots are being consulted what position to take in the presidential elections, but also, apparently, as a precaution to the effect of his support for a candidate.

“The truth is that I will be very prudent because this unjust situation that I am suffering has hurt my reputation and the truth is that our government has not been sufficiently loved by the Colombian people,” Uribe said at 6AM Hoy Por Hoy.

His situation is the judicial process that is being followed for alleged manipulation of witnesses, which led him to leave the Senate and spend more than a month in detention. On Tuesday, in addition, the Constitutional Court ratified the nullity of the guardianship with which the defense of former President Uribe Vélez intended not to be charged with the crimes of procedural fraud and bribery within the criminal proceedings against him.

Regarding President Duque, his image has not been rising for more than a year. According to the most recent Invamer survey, only 23% of Colombians would approve its administration and 73% speak out against how it has led the country. However, he did express his political support and voted in the consultation for the Colombia Team that Gutiérrez won.

Those are the reasons why Uribe prefers to keep support private in the presidential contest and why there has been no official decision so far. In the interview, he even highlighted his analysis in another response.

After learning the results of the legislative elections, “the party's bench met. I went and told them: this is not for parties. We lost. There are some very delicate issues here: the impact of my reputation, the government has not been sufficiently loved by the popular base of the nation. There are some difficulties there and you have to recognize them,” said the former president.

The favorability of Uribe, who has led the main political force of the last two decades in Colombia, according to Invamer, has also fallen in recent years. The disapproval of the former president of the Colombians reached 69%, a slight improvement on that presented in May 2021 when Uribe's poor image - which when he was president reached up to 85% approval - stood at 73%.

However, what clarifies is the opposition to the candidacy of Gustavo Petro, who won a victory in the legislatures. “Today I have a very big fear that they will lead us to a disguised, tangled process that will lead us to Venezuela, Cuba or Argentina itself. These governments know how to arrive and arrive with great audacity, with captivating speeches and there they apply the formula of democratic destruction, of destruction of private enterprise. It is nothing but to see, not to talk about Venezuela, that issue of poverty and inflation in Argentina and to compare that here with the proposals of Gustavo Petro,” he told the station.

Uribe assured that the legitimacy of the new Congress is in question and if it is not clarified what happened in the past elections, which in its concept goes beyond a mistake, it could have an impact on the presidential elections.

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