Former President Álvaro Uribe made a live video in which he defended his government’s policies and questioned the reforms of Gustavo Petro’s government. He did so in reaction to Petro’s speech, which said that Uribe “was wrong from beginning to end.”
“They denied Castro-Chavismo, but with their actions every day they are executing it. Basically, there are two models here: neocommunism, which nullifies intelligence; and freedom, which stimulates creativity and equity,” said Uribe.
Regarding Petro’s labor reform, Uribe said that “it produces panic in investment and discourages the creation of formal jobs.” In addition, the former president pointed out that “on our initiative, the law was approved that reduces the working day from 48 to 42 hours per week.”
“This government incites class hatred, we believe in a fraternal economy. Therefore, instead of this obsolete and confrontational labor reform, we propose an additional bonus for workers when their economic sector grows above 4%,” Uribe said during the video he uploaded to his institutional accounts.
Uribe also questioned the pension reform: “The government aims to end pension savings to engage in politics and sustain the State’s waste.”
And he defended himself against the false positives that occurred in his government. “The mistreatment of false positives is repeated against me, it is ignored that I diligently separated 27 senior commanders (…) thanks to democratic security the country experienced moments of peace.”
Here the full video:
Context
Throughout his career as a parliamentarian, Gustavo Petro was the main opponent of Uribism and hatred of former President Uribe was a great mobilizer of support during his electoral campaign.
However, as soon as he arrived at Casa de Nariño, he was surprised by the cordial relationship he established with former President Uribe, whom he invited to the Palace a couple of times, achieving a kind of political peace with his political rival. With the appointment of Mancuso as peace manager, Petro put that relationship at risk. And for several weeks now, that cordiality came to an end. Petro has reinforced his speech against Uribe, and the former president has responded in a similar tone.
