The former vice president of Colombia assured Infobae that he fears for the safety of Rodolfo Hernández, given that, according to him, today he is an obstacle in the objective of the most radical left in Latin America: the mandate of Gustavo Petro
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Francisco Santos, former Colombian ambassador to the United States, spoke with Infobae about the electoral ponarama in the country after the first presidential round. Photo: AFP/archive
On the morning of May 30, the former vice president and former ambassador of Colombia in Washington, Francisco Santos, published a thread of messages on his account on Twitter, where he analyzed the results of the first presidential round, which left Gustavo Petro (Historical Pact) and Rodolfo Hernández (Liga of Governors Anti-Corruption), who will face each other again at the polls on June 19.
Among some of these issues, Santos explained that a “brutal barrage” is coming against the engineer from Santander, as he is the one who can defeat Petro in the second round. In addition, he emphasized that the leader of the Historical Pact is the new oxygen “in the equation of Maduro and other mafiosi on the continent.”.
Santos spoke with Infobae about Hernández’s real options to become the new president of Colombia, the dangers he runs, what the role of Uribe will be and the only way in which Petro could reverse the electoral trend.
Infobae: Regarding the thread you recently published in your Twitter account, in which you analyzed what happened on May 29, did you really see Rodolfo Hernández getting into the second round?
Francisco Santos:A few days ago I made a statement at a university in Miami (United States) saying exactly that, that Rodolfo Hernández was going to be the candidate who went to the second round for a useful vote issue. Many people who may have a greater affinity with Federico Gutiérrez know that the objective is to defeat Gustavo Petro, because what Petro did was generate hatred, destruction, class struggle. He never built anything, he never built a bridge. Everything was ‘me, me, me’, and in that scenario whoever had the best chance of beating Petro was the one who was going to go to the second round. And in these last 15 days that phenomenon was consolidated and that happened.
There is a section of your analysis in which no, you affirm, the physical elimination of Rodolfo Hernández should not be ruled out. Do you think that the physical integrity of the candidate is in danger?
Absolutely. And I say it without hesitation. He today is an obstacle in the biggest objective of the most radical left in Latin America in the most important country for them. He is the great obstacle. There, add ELN, FARC, drug traffickers, Maduro… the number one enemy right now is not Álvaro Uribe, it’s Rodolfo Hernández. It must be protected in a way that a presidential candidate has never been protected.
What position should Rodolfo Hernández take regarding Uribismo?
Any. Uribeism should not propose anything to the engineer. Uribismo completed a 20-year cycle and is going to have to rethink what it has to build for the next elections. What Rodolfo has to do is say: “Whoever wants to come, come, I don’t give anything in return, here I am and this is what I represent”. I tell him, those five million votes come by themselves, and the first one to be there is me, but without asking for anything. As Federico said, I think he showed greatness in defeat like I have rarely seen.
Today, Rodolfo has 11 and a half million votes and Petro eight and a half, that is the truth. Where Petro can get three million votes? I don’t have the slightest idea. Or yes I do: buying hundreds of millions of dollars from the mafia, buying those votes in many areas of Colombia. The only way Petro can win this election is through vote-buying fraud.
Has Petro hit his ceiling and is he going to stay there?
In four years it rose 400,000 people. Yeah, that’s the ceiling. And that is a great lesson for the Colombian left. You do not arrive with hate, destroying. It is a lesson for the FARC, the ELN, the front line, all those scoundrels: they destroy instead of creating. Petro will never be president of Colombia, because he built his imaginary on the basis that the other must be destroyed. And that image, today, is much more powerful as a negative narrative.
Does Colombia not want Gustavo Petro or a left-wing president?
To Gustav Petro. The theme is Peter. If the candidate on the left is a guy like Ricardo Lagos (former president of Chile) he would have won in the first round with 11 million votes. Here the problem has its own name and surname, and it is what he built, because he always built from destruction and hatred. But that language, that political career has a limit, and that is what the Colombians showed him.
Is Rodolfo Hernández ready to be the next president of Colombia?
It all depends on who you surround yourself with. Rodolfo arrived without any political party, he arrived alone. He has no strings attached. Petro has many more ties to political mafias. He then has total freedom to choose the best people to govern and that is ultimately what generates a good government. He is a man with a career, prepared, an engineer, he was mayor, he has a history that serves him for that. Being president is something else, but if you make me say who is more prepared between Gustavo Petro or Rodolfo Hernández, I have no doubt that Rodolfo Hernández.