We are faced with two opposing interpretations of the cocoa summit with President Petro in Cartagena this week.
First: that he was inspired by his arrogance and revenge to humiliate the rich. He locks up the cocoa to take a photo that will neutralize the failure of his policies, to hide that he cannot govern the country and that he does not exceed 25% in most polls, even though it is always tailored for him. In the survey conducted on his mobile phone, his popularity was determined as 51%. Abra Kadabra!
The other interpretation is that Petro really wants to turn his government around and become a dialogical president as an act of compromise, depolarization, and a first step towards a national agreement.
From speaking ‘off the record’ with some people present, I got the impression that they mostly preferred to believe this second interpretation. Some out of naivety (those who believe they are naive cocoons), others out of pragmatism, and others out of necessity and convenience in approaching the Government.
It is known that the meeting was led by one of the business groups, which used Benedetti’s former brother-in-law, government advisor Juan Fernández, accompanied by Laura Sarabia, to coordinate the meeting and make the selected invitations.
In the frame, they made sure to put engineer Luis Carlos Sarmiento Angulo first in the photo and well behind the others, who did not want to overdub for appearance and comfort reasons.
By clarifying the obvious fact that Sarmiento is the owner of this newspaper, I understand the value of his presence at this meeting after the Government’s treatment of his business group. And, as always, he stood out with his detailed knowledge. Thus, each of the existing cocoas has done its part in completing projects in the urgent areas of the country: Sarmiento will invest in La Guajira; Cavelier (Alquería) in Cundinamarca; Eder (Manuelita) in Buenaventura and Ardila (Postobón) in the Valley.
They also confirmed to me that the President had arrived a little late, which was unusual; that he is not pushy and listens a lot, which is unusual; that there was less tension than budgeted; that First Lady Verónica Alcocer appeared to them like “a little music box”; Dressed in a way that even Queen Leticia of Spain wouldn’t dare at her best gala, Laura Sarabia has more authority than we think, she understands the problems and you can talk to her; and that he definitely owns the Petrist frying pan.
Another participant confessed to me his intuition that this call was heavily influenced by the election results, which tormented the Government and made it consider opening the agenda; Because a bigger problem than the acceptance of the bad reforms proposed by the Government in Congress is the disruption of public works, the gap in wages, interest rates and inflation that does not decrease. “The country has gone into recession,” he told me very worriedly.
But when it came time to point out to another source what President Petro had actually committed to, the response was hilarious: “You know I don’t know? “We will need to request a meeting minutes from Laura Sarabia in which her commitments are clearly stated.”
Shall I tell you my result? Petro took photos with cocoas to improve his image, reassure the public and give the message that he accepted the policies of the rich in this country. But most of all, because he knows that a president is not brought down by the incompetence of some Chapinero ladies, he knows, as an expert in history, that this can only happen when the owners of the country believe that the time has come. .
What Petro will never trust is that none of the rich people present or absent thought of taking him down, because he was born into the conspiracy theory. This is a corporate country, alien to soft coups and hard coups.
Meanwhile… If it is true that President Petro is openly engaging in a dialogue stance, we should ask him to instruct the aggressive Minister of Health to stop his attacks on an institution like Sanitas in Colombia. Colsanitas has been in the country since 1980. EPS Sanitas since 1995. I am not one of its users, but this week I had to attend the treatment of one of its specialists in one of their clinics and was amazed at its seriousness and modernity. But Minister Guillermo Alfonso insists on lifting the institutional veil to show what we already know: This is an international organization that has been copied in various parts of the continent, building on the successes of the Colombian model. They couldn’t do this if they didn’t get feedback from their missions. Since when did this become a sin? Stop this crazy nonsense, Mr. Minister…
MARIA ISABEL RUEDA
(Read all of María Isabel Rueda’s articles in EL TIEMPO here)
Source: Exame
