The leader of the Oxygen Green party caused much to be talked about during the pre-election period due to her contradictions. Finally, he decided to support Rodolfo Hernández
The leader of the Oxygen Green party gave people something to talk about during the entire pre-election period in Colombia and finally decided to join a candidate other than the one from the Centro Esperanza coalition. Photo: Colprensa.
Ingrid Betancourt, without a doubt, was one of the political figures who gave the most talk prior to this Sunday’s elections. On May 20, with only days left before the voting, the leader of the Oxygen Green party stepped aside to support the candidate Rodolfo Hernández and not Sergio Fajardo, who is of the same political line and with whom he shared in the Centro Esperanza coalition.
The news was made official in Barranquilla (Atlántico), where Hernández held a campaign event in which he asked Íngrid Betancourt to go on stage to confirm her support. In the middle of the speech, the leader of the Verde Oxígeno said that she was convinced that the Santanderean is a center option that will unite the country.
“I have made the decision to support the only candidate who can defeat the system. The people who do not want either Fico or Petro, here is their candidate. We are going to unite for the first time in a center option. For the first time we are going to unite without machinery, only opinion votes. We are going to follow the leader who speaks to the hearts of Colombians. I didn’t make it, Rodolfo made it. We are going to win in the second round,” said Betancourt.
Infobae Colombiacompiled some of Ingrid’s statements that dynamited the ‘center’, as well as the controversies she starred in on the public stage, such is the case of the time she referred to sexual abuse against women, her evident indecision in her political line and the disagreements with some candidates such as Alejandro Gaviria and Sergio Fajardo, even when he shared with them in the same coalition.
Ingrid Betancourt vs. Alejandro Gaviria, a ‘married’ fight
Although there was more than one discrepancy between the members of the Hope Center Coalition, one of them, perhaps the most relevant, was the one between Íngrid Betancourt and Alejandro Gaviria, who lost his temper in some debates. The candidate questioned the former minister for receiving support from senators Germán Varon Cotrino and Miguel Ángel Pinto, key figures of the Cambio Radical and Liberal parties, respectively, arguing that she was going against a principle: that of not having machinery.
“The forecasts that were made at the time were pale reflections of what was to come. The masks have already fallen. So, what we see is that Alejandro Gaviria, upon entering the conclave and having signed an anti-machinery agreement with all of us, is dismissed. He joins everyone he said he wasn’t going to join,” he said on Blu Radio. Because of this supposed support from the machinery, on January 29, he made the decision to say goodbye to the coalition.
A candidate from center that wanted to ally itself with the right?
Although from the beginning Betancourt presented himself as an option for supporters of the center current, his actions and statements were often not aligned, for example, with those of Sergio Fajardo, of the Centro Esperanza coalition.
The love-hate relationship with the center was evident during the pre-election period. To sample, a button: when there was talk of a possible alliance between Íngrid Betancourt and the Democratic Center after the candidate reported, last April, that she would meet with former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez.
Stock image. Ingrid Betancourt and Álvaro Uribe Vélez.
At that time even the same members of his party rejected Betancourt’s flirtation with Uribismo.
“In our capacity as congressmen elected by the Oxygen Green party, we express our surprise and total disagreement with the recent statements (…) in the interest of seeking agreements with Álvaro Uribe Vélez and the Democratic Center,” the elected congressmen stated in a letter. for the Oxygen Green Party, Humberto de la Calle and Daniel Carvalho.
It is worth remembering that Íngrid’s rapprochement with the leader of the Democratic Center took place when she had already announced her separation from the Center coalition Esperanza.
Ingrid hurt the Centro Esperanza coalition: Sergio Fajardo
After the intentions of speaking with Álvaro Uribe Vélez and the tensions generated within the Verde Oxígeno party became known, the candidate Sergio Fajardo, who won the presidential consultation of the Centro Esperanza coalition, referred to the damages caused the actions of politics.
“Ingrid changed. She came as a conciliator, came back from France and announced that she was a candidate, she left the Coalition and now De la Calle and Carvalho are trapped in her party. She now has rapprochements with the Democratic Center.”
About de la Calle and Carvalho was not the only time he spoke: “You cannot campaign with me because, due to a rule for a legal issue, they cannot participate. So —Ingrid’s departure from the coalition— has been harmful, without a doubt.”
Ingrid Betancourt and Sergio Fajardo. Photos: Colprensa
Furthermore, he stressed that the leader of Verde Oxígeno could meet with whoever she wanted, but r refused to go with the leader of the party through which he was elected Iván Duque in 2018.
Betancourt defended himself, although for some it was contradictory
After all the accusations for his rapprochement with Uribismo, Betancourt came out to defend himself, assuring that talking did not mean making partisan pacts.
“Accepting a pending conversation with Uribe does not imply partisan pacts. This commitment to reconciliation is a woman’s vision, anything but erratic. I invite you to be part of this dialogue and build together. Polarization has led to demonizing the construction of the country,” the presidential candidate stated on her social networks at the time.
However, in an interview with the Blu Radio station, she returned to deliver Statements that some called contradictory: “I have no intention of making an alliance with Uribismo, what I do not rule out is that people who have supported Uribismo, who are not from the machinery, who want to end this situation, join in this great national pact against corruption. I don’t rule that out.”
She called for the union of the center and ended up supporting Hernández
Although the relationship between the former candidate and the Centro Esperanza coalition was tense after the aforementioned controversies, in a debate held by Eafit University of Medellín referred to the possibility of a new union, questioned, again, by Sergio Fajardo.
The former candidate to reach the House of Nariño assured that for the elections in the first round they had “to unite the center, so not everyone can get there”, to which Fajardo replied: “I have not talked anything with Íngrid , with Íngrid it has been a difficult relationship.”
Finally, although she assured that she was not going to withdraw from her candidacy, arguing that she was the only woman aspiring to the presidency , and refused to support Sergio Fajardo as the center’s candidate, last Friday, May 20, she announced her withdrawal as a candidate for the Vede Oxígeno party and announced her alliance with Rodolfo Hernández.
Ingrid Betancourt and Rodolfo Hernández seek a place in the second presidential round. Photo: Rodolfo Hernández Campaign