Time is running out: Íngrid Betancourt is hours away from defining whether or not to leave the Centro Esperanza coalition

The pre-candidate of the Centro Esperanza coalition Íngrid Betancourt continues to controvert the Colombian political sphere and it is expected that around 12:00 this Saturday, January 29, she will make a decision on whether to withdraw or not of the team with which the Presidency is disputed. Thus it was ratified with the third ultimatum that he made on Friday night.

In her statement, the former kidnapped by the FARC, who returned to Colombia at the end of 2021 to meddle in politics, warned her colleagues that if the former Minister of Health, Alejandro Gaviria, does not reject the support of Cambio Radical, and other sectors that for Betancourt are “machinery”, she will not only not participate in the presidential race with them, but will withdraw her political party from Centro Esperanza.

In addition, she reiterated the anti-corruption discourse with which she has campaigned in the less than 15 days since she announced her candidacy for the group with which she tried to become the first female president of Colombia before her kidnapping by the FARC in the year 2002.

“I am free to say this because I have been away from politics for so long, that I owe nothing to anyone, I am free from the chains of the corrupt system that kidnapped Colombia. Whenever I talk about eliminating corruption, they always ask me: How? How to end corruption? Well, that's how. Making difficult decisions but guided by our principles and not by interests”, added Ingrid Betancourt.

And it is that the discontent between the political leader and the former Minister of Health in the previous government arose from the scuffle they staged during a presidential debate in which Betancourt confronted Alejandro Gaviria for receiving a sector of the party led by the Former Vice President Germán Vargas Lleras.

“Alejandro, you and I made an agreement that we signed in the conclave in which we were not going to bring any machinery to the coalition. You have accepted the support of people that I am very concerned about”, said the candidate, referring to the support that Gaviria received from a sector of the Cambio Radical party.

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The discussion became so heated that the also ex-rector of the University of Los Andes stood up in front of her, called her a “hypocrite” and days later implied that the former kidnapped was an opportunist; which led Betancourt to issue other warnings to her coalition ahead of this year's presidential elections in Colombia.

“Ingrid, hers is hypocrisy and opportunism. She should, as Gabriel García Márquez said, look at herself in the mirror of her own faults. Why don't you examine the list of the Green Alliance, isn't there any machinery there, in your party?”, the politician questioned her while she said she was not from that party.

We recall that, if Betancourt does not leave Centro Esperanza, he will face a referendum in March to choose the presidential candidate of that coalition, which will be held on March 13 along with the legislative elections.

Betancourt will face other important politicians; among them are also former presidential candidate Sergio Fajardo, former minister Juan Fernando Cristo. also former minister Alejandro Gaviria, senator Jorge Robledo, and former senator Juan Manuel Galán.

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