Woman, Afro -descendant, “social fighter” and the Colombian Pacific, one of the poorest, hardest and most insecure areas of Colombia, were the “qualities” that made Márquez into The “symbolic quota” that Petro needed to get his pass to the house of Nariño in June 2022.
Six months later, from Istmina, in the department of Chocó (Northwest), Petro “rewarded” his vice president with the official creation of the Ministry of Equality and Equitywhich directed from June 30, 2023 to February 27, 2025.
Márquez’s decline began on February 4, during the unprecedented Council of Ministers that Petro decided to convey live, showing, without any reserve, The deep fracture within its cabinetwhich culminated with a ministerial restructuring after the resignation of several ministers.
“In the February Council of Ministers, France broke the libretto and said what everyone knew, but no one dared to say: that Armando Benedetti did not deserve to be there, much less to have been chief of cabinet,” explains the journalist and political analyst, Sofy Casas, in conversation with conversation with conversation with Las Américas Diario.
Márquez made public his concern that “people with blackmail” arrive to the government, as many assumed, it would have been the case of Benedetti, who in filtered audios demanded a better treatment of Petro’s government, while warning that if he talked about the financing of the “all” campaign they would “sink” and “prisoners” would go.
In the opinion of Casas, this was a “Need -up of how the government normalizes corruption” and defends its “darker bishops”, as is the case of Benedetti, who serves as Minister of Interior, and Chancellor Laura Sarabia. Both, involved in the scandal on the alleged irregular financing of the Petro campaign.
“Benedetti not only supported him, but he publicly shielded him. Not by loyalty, but because Benedetti knows too much about what happened in his presidential campaign. Let’s not forget that today he is investigated by the Supreme Court for illicit enrichment and his own bribery, ”he says.
“Fight for quotas”
The analyst considers that the Petro and Márquez alliance “was never a real marriage,” but an “electoral calculation”, since the social leader gave the former guerrilla the “symbolic quota she needed” to take the presidency.
However, he continues, once Petro became with power, “cornered it”, since “deep down he never saw her as an equal.” “He needed it to win, but not to govern”highlights.
What the Petro government currently lives, he says, “is not an ideological breakup,” but “a fight for quotas.” This would be demonstrated by the recent complaints of Márquez, who said that after a year and a half of being in charge of the Ministry of Equality and Equity, which “created from scratch”, Petro separated her from office “when he was ready to take the investment to territory.”
In her reappearance, after three months of maintaining a low profile, the vice president referred to the difficulties she has presented to “govern in a country that has a racial state and with a government that also practices racism and patriarchy.”
For houses, Márquez’s statements are because “The checkbook and prominence were over”so now he intends to do “damage control” with the intention of “washing his image and brand distance” of the Petro government.
He assures that Márquez is “active part of the most corrupt and inept government of Colombia’s most recent history.” He mentions that the Ministry of Equality and Equity, for example, would have been “A ministry invented for hera public resources sink designed to have it happy, with parallel payrolls, doubtful contracts and zero results ”.
“When they were removed, not for transparency but because it was no longer useful, France reacted like what it is: a political figure without base, without results and now without power. And there came the complaints: that the government is racist, which is patriarchal, that excluded it. Does it now realize?
Neutralized
Petro, as usual, responded to the accusations of his vice president for the social network X, showing that Márquez, despite being in charge of two positions at the same time, not “really executed”, but it would have been guided by the “bad advice of (Álvaro) Leyva”, his former chancellor, whom this June 4 accused, again, of suffering narcotic addictions, as well as Benedetti, and trying to cause a “state self -golpe” in Colombia.
This response from Petro further accentuates the distance between both rulers. Casas estimates that “for practical purposes”, the leftist president would have “replaced” Márquez. Since February, for example, the vice president does not go to the Councils of Ministers or has not been seen in the Casa de Nariño.
“France Márquez today is institutional decoration. And Petro is responsible for reminding him every time he can, with pollas, disavow and public teasing and even responsible for not ‘executing’, ”says the political analyst.
In his opinion, Petro, who “despises her” because “ceased to be useful”, would have “neutralized”, leaving her “without agenda, without voice and without pesos.” “The humiliation is made. And the most cynical: she herself helped build the stage from which they expel it today (…) Let’s not fool ourselves: France was also complicit in the project that today sinks to the country”, Emphasizes.
Although Márquez could apply for his candidacy for the presidential elections of 2026, Casas considers that he is “politically burned” at this time. “They have it so subjugated and cornered, because they are sick misogynists in that government,” he says.
He also points out that Petro’s “break” with his vice president is “just the facade of a government that collapsed from the inside”, so it would be the “total confirmation” of its government failure.
He maintains that the president, although he sold “the change”, what he did was govern with “the same clientelism of always, only more gross, more arrogant and corrupt.” “It filled the state of incompetent loyal, normalized the disgust and ended up dynamiting until its own vice presidential formula,” he says.
“He could not even maintain the farce with whom he helped him win. Not even with the most powerful symbolic quota managed It is the collapse of a government that is sustained in lies, inflated egos and hollow promises”, Says.
Petro lights alarms in Colombia
In the midst of this scenario, Petro announced the night of June 3, the call, via decree, of the popular consultation to impose its socialist reforms, which the Senate rejected twice, lighting the alarms throughout Colombia, so it could be considered as “A coup d’etat”.
“Petro, by imposing a consultation already rejected by the Senate, breaks with the constitutional order. We are facing a dictator. When a government does not know the decisions of the Congress or the judges, and tries to impose its will outside the law, it is openly violating the rule of law, ”says Casas.
He estimates that in the coffee nation a “Direct Pulse against Democracy”with which Petro would seek to impose his socialist narrative in which the other powers of the State are “enemies of the people” to launch a constituent or block the 2026 elections.
“Although fractured, it still controls public resources, loyal operators and key levers of power. It has a narrative, street and a weakened institutionality that allows it to advance. It has the state’s checkbook,” warns the analyst, when he plays the democratic parties to join in a forceful rejection and the Supreme Court of Colombia to oppose the attempted attempted Petro.
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