Without Petro, there's no paradise? | Interview by María Isabel Rueda

Pre-candidate Gustavo Bolívar drops a political bombshell. He says that out of consistency, he cannot support Daniel Quintero if he wins the Colombia Humana internal referendum, but he understands that would break the rules of the game. He announces that he prefers to wait until March to face him. "I will not leave the path clear for him," he asserts.

Regarding the title of your successful novel, "Is there no paradise without Petro?"

Without Petro, there's no paradise for the poor. For the rich, it's partially so. Because many aren't doing badly. People would like to have more companies, more businesses, and even have the power to manage the state as they did before.

Would you interrupt programming so frequently to make presidential addresses?

I prefer López Obrador's model, which is morning-only. But of course, in unforeseen circumstances, prime time is used.

It's that unlike what happened before, as the great Melba Escobar wrote the other day in EL TIEMPO, a presidential speech paralyzed us all, instead of what happens today, when we tune in to it as background noise.

Yes, it was something extraordinary. Manuel López Obrador's approach was very good because all morning he was outlining what the government was doing and where it was headed. We proposed that tactic, which was better, to Petro many times.

The President's new communications advisor is highly controversial... Fairly or unfairly, he has a reputation as an international con artist.

I feel like communication is much more organized and fluid. I'm not familiar with the personal and legal aspects, although I've heard things.

Would you have state agencies promote the government? Even those in charge of informing us about the epicenters of earthquakes, for example, are promoting the government's epicenters.

Well, if you set up a press office and see that the media outlets there aren't reporting the government's news...

But it's the President's fault, as he saturates public opinion with his frequent speeches.

his frequent speeches.

This week, 18,000 hectares were handed over in La Dorada. That's outrageous news. The farm where Yair Klein trained paramilitaries was handed over to a university to build dormitories. But the news was all about the clitoris and the Bryans... Petro doesn't know how to joke. He has no sense of humor. He doesn't gauge reactions. They announce a national Bryans association...

The reference was very hard.

They're going to leave some pregnant girls out there...

Yes. Petro can't just take people's names and disparagingly generalize them as the identity of rapists.

I know Petro, he didn't mean to offend. It's all wrong.

Could it be that you are missing him as an advisor?

I would have become a communications consultant, really.

And is there no one in his circle to advise him and measure the consequences of these comments?

This is like the seventh or eighth communications advisor. The government hasn't been able to communicate well.

As Benedetti himself admits, the cabinet is very weak. So, who's telling Petro the common sense things? They all seem like puppets nodding their heads in ecstasy...

I find Benedetti's saying that serious.

And they play tricks to fit Florián and a candidate for deputy minister without professional qualifications into the cabinet.

Honestly, it's an unnecessary waste of time, in my opinion. How do you defend that?

Since there are no polls, do you have any internal measurement of whether you continue to occupy the top spots, based on the sympathy your sincerity inspires?

In one that Roy commissioned with Cifras y Conceptos, I was leading 32% to Quintero's 17% and Roy's 17%. Iván was further behind, but hadn't launched yet. The last poll I see is Semana's, with a narrower margin, because Iván was already in the running. I'm at 20%, Quintero at 16%, Iván at 15%, Carolina at 14%. Those are the last two I see.

In this context, it would seem that President Petro is very cold toward you and your candidacy. Even Benedetti confessed to Semana that Petro had told you not to interfere, and that, despite that, you still ran. And that has consequences. And the one who should be angry is the President.

Benedetti's statement isn't true, because Petro doesn't impose, he doesn't command people. I informed him that I was going to withdraw to launch my candidacy; it's a right I have. He didn't like it, though. Because what Benedetti said about the poll is that, for him, the best candidates for President are Quintero and Roy.

He mentions him at the end, but he puts him somewhere, in third place. But if Benedetti, an old political class, says Quintero, already accused of corruption, and Roy are the best candidates, that means they've already taken over the left, the Pact.

But if Benedetti himself says that the votes of those who have reached Congress are for Petro... Does he own the whole world?

Objectively speaking, what we have is Petrism. A party wasn't built. He asked us to build it, and it took three years. They came to build it with just one month to go before submitting the applications to the CNE. So, as long as there is Petrism, the owner of the votes is Petro.

It will continue to be Petro's party.

But it's now a collective entity. One party is many Petros.

There is a party, Colombia Humana, but the CNE hasn't allowed it to merge with the Historic Pact for legal reasons...

But the party isn't a legal entity. We didn't establish committees in the towns, we didn't build a network over the past three years to unite the party's movements, so today it doesn't exist. There is Petrism, and a big one. Today, Petro has a bigger following than Santos, 22%, and Duque, 17%. In contrast, in his last year, Petro has a following of 39%.

But the opposition wasn't that radical. We hadn't seen that before.

There are people who want to take over Petro's legacy, that's another thing.

Don't you want to keep the inheritance?

In the electoral sense of the word, we would all like that legacy. But how? Some of us are playing at defending the government with the loyalties we've always had, but there are others who are doing dirty things.

How about Daniel Quintero? You've been very harsh with him. In the Caracol debate, you called him an "opportunist."

Of course. Because if it's an internal Pact referendum and he's making alliances with right-wing sectors, with the Conservative Party, that's dirty. Then the election will be tainted, and it won't be the Petro supporters who will decide, but the political country. And it could happen—it's a warning to the people—that the right wing wins the left-wing referendum in October.

In an open consultation, if the parties are not registered, then anyone can vote.

But it could also happen that the anti-Quinterian faction, which is larger than the Quinter faction, also casts votes. I wouldn't like to win like that, because of that distortion.

Or that he is the one who wins…

Yes. In France, only members of the party can vote; here, they can't.

But there is the possibility of a Plan B instead of a consultation, such as a survey…

I've proposed it. I proposed it to Iván Cepeda, and I'm going to do it with Carolina Corcho. Iván takes votes away from Corcho and me, not Quintero. There isn't a single person who has the dilemma of Iván or Quintero; they're like water and oil when it comes to ethics and political customs. But there are many people already debating between Cepeda, Corcho, and Bolívar. We represent almost the same thing.

I think he's in March. But I also think Roy will want to give Quintero his votes so he can win, because he'll likely go to jail, and then Roy will make a clean sweep, because he's very smart.

I appreciate your sincerity. You spend your time complaining that decisions like the CNE's are intended to stifle the left, but the plain truth is that, according to Colombia Humana's own bylaws, there weren't enough votes from its delegates to approve the merger with the Historic Pact...

The National Electoral Council, very diligently, resorted to a wording in which the letter O is replaced by Y. I'm not a lawyer, but I've heard that no one is forced to do the impossible. We don't have the infrastructure to physically gather the required number of people.

Do you think President Petro is participating in politics? We already know from Benedetti about the instructions he gave you, and the cold shoulder that has caused you to disobey them. There's the little push he's given to Daniel Quintero and the support for Iván Cepeda. He's threatening to take the CNE's decision, which is legal, to the IACHR. All of these are electoral politics…

What Petro does is different from what Benedetti did. Petro is the leader of a party.

But he is the president of all Colombians.

Many presidents have been leaders of their own parties, and Petro has to draw the line at his own party. But he does so privately, at the Casa de Nariño.

Not even privately. I never go to the Casa de Nariño, and I'll give you those examples.

I've never heard Petro publicly say that my candidate is Quintero, or Roy, or Iván, or Bolívar. Everyone who takes a photo with him says they're Petro's candidates, but he never confirms it.

Yes, there were very strong rumors that Quintero was the favorite, and that now he's competing with Cepeda for favoritism...

Quintero has never been Petro's candidate. What's happening is that he's worried that the referendum will end up too weak. He's wanted to send people to generate competition and prevent a referendum with 800,000 votes, and those who lack political culture from coming out and saying that Petro reduced all that from his 11 million presidential votes.

But then it's contradictory. Interference in the internal consultation is more likely to occur with more votes (attracting those outside the left), and it's more difficult with fewer votes.

Correct. There's a contradiction and a difficult dilemma. If there are few votes, they can't beat us by buying votes. But if there are many, thanks to these alliances with traditional politics (and the rumor that they're traveling around the country with that goal in mind has been confirmed), they can defeat us. We on the left don't do politics by mobilizing people with buses. This political class has nothing at stake in October. They're waiting for the March congressional elections, but they can start putting the structures in place.

I see you're hesitant to hold that consultation in October. So, yes, or no?

This week we'll find out what this thing called coherence is. Be careful, because what I'm about to say is very delicate. It's mandatory to support whoever wins the internal referendum. But if Quintero wins, I wouldn't help him, but I would breach the agreement. The party's ethics committee must be able to set a legal red line for the participants, because those accused of corruption cannot run.

Tremendous announcement of yours…

If I register for the referendum, I'm accepting that if Quintero wins, I'll support a person accused of corruption, and my 2022 campaign against Rodolfo Hernández was against that. I've had more than 25 tweets asking: Are they going to elect someone accused of corruption? Where does my coherence lie, then? It can't be that those accused of corruption on the right are bad and those on the left are good.

Would the other candidates for the internal consultation be in that position?

I don't think so. I find them all lukewarm. That's extremely serious. We're not talking about a position here, but rather a fight for a political project, a cause for which many people, like those in the UP, have died fighting. So I can't go out and support handing the case over to a man who is accused of corruption, him and his entire cabinet. I'm not capable of doing that.

I repeat: did you say lukewarm?

I find them lukewarm. That's why I'm speaking the truth publicly and have referred to Quintero as an opportunist. I would support any of my other colleagues without hesitation, and I would wear the jersey, but not with him. Then unity is damaged and coherence is shattered. Look: I'd rather lose a thousand elections than lose coherence.

So how can there be a referendum in which there is a condition that one of the participants will not accept the candidacy of another if they win?

Well, I'd have to make the decision. Either I don't go to that consultation, or if I do, I support the outcome, but I'm not capable of supporting Quintero knowing what he's done.

So, are we on the verge of a breakup, with you withdrawing from the consultation?

I'm about to see if I'll stay until March or... Why? Because if he manages to beat Iván, I'll take on Quintero in March. But I'm not leaving him a clear path.