‘Gustavo Petro used the illusion of change to create sectarianism and corruption’: Claudia López

After resigning from the Green Alliance, following the corruption scandal in the National Disaster Risk Management Unit (UNGRD), which affects several of its militants -Iván Name and Sandra Ortiz-, The former mayor of Bogotá Claudia López spoke with EL TIEMPO about her political future.
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(In context: The departure of Claudia López and Mockus exacerbates the ‘green’ fracture. What comes after the resignations?)

“We are leaving (López and Antanas Mockus) because the Green Party is no longer the Green Party. It is no longer the party of education and the fight against corruption, unfortunately it ended up co-opted by a Petrist minority, of traditional politics, and that is not the green wave,” he assured.

At what point do you say: ‘I’m leaving the Green Alliance’? What was behind the scenes?

Everything we know about the course and future of this government is worse than the immediately previous one. I am outside the country, studying, in academia, thinking about the issues and solutions. But what you say every day is certainly inadmissible. One thing is the debates about whether the reform is yes or no and another thing is the ethical limits. What has been crossed are ethical boundaries that are unacceptable, both for Antanas Mockus and for me. We both arrived in the ‘green wave’, the teacher as a candidate in 2010, with him, always working hand in hand, defending the fight against corruption, cultural change, education. And we go to time because just as we arrive to time, we go to time.

Because?

But if it is a Petrist minority, as you say, how does that faction end up taking over the party?

The Party and its structure have always been controlled by Carlos Ramón González, who was the founder. And Carlos Ramón, I must say, had always had a respectful and guaranteeing role for the different tendencies of the party until his friend from the guerrilla, his friend in life, who is Gustavo Petro, won the Presidency. I understand it, I personally understand that she is his friend, I understand that this is his lifelong project, that of M19. I understand. But, then, he could leave for the Historical Pact without any problem. But what he did was stay in the green, co-opt the green, prevent the representation and independence of the majority sector which is that of the ‘green wave’ and today we see that they are involved in corruption scandals in the Government. This has become unsustainable since the triumph of Gustavo Petro and they are no longer debates, it is not a problem of ideologies, of differences, of proposals for reforms, but of ethical limits that we cannot accept, that we will never cross and that we will not to allow, in any way, our name to be involved in that. The ‘green wave’ is no longer the Green Party and we are going to where we have always been, with the citizens and with the causes that represent us.

But citizens remember that you participated in Gustavo Petro’s presidential campaign in 2022. You did not participate because you were in the Mayor’s Office and could not do politics, but that ‘green wave’ did. Are they disappointed? Are they sorry?

Is President Petro aware of these cases of corruption – if they end up being true – or did everything happen behind his back?

President Petro has to assume responsibility and I say it with all due respect: we cannot all continue here, starting with the citizens, the networks, even the media, trapped in the grandiloquence of distraction that President Gustavo Petro invents. The president decided to stop governing. Dedicate yourself to a political campaign and use the issue of the constituent assembly and such a soft coup to have them talking about it, instead of talking about the problems that are occurring and the solutions. We can’t fall for that. We cannot fall for washing hands of the President, who evades all responsibility, who spends his time campaigning from platform to platform every day. This week they murdered six of the soldiers in Cauca because the reinforcements did not arrive on time. While we are in this interview, La Mojana is flooded. And where are the President of the Republic and the director of the UNGRD? Doing politicking on a platform in a neighborhood in Bogotá. The president is going to dedicate himself to the political campaign. He doesn’t care about anything else. He doesn’t care about the country, he stopped governing, he is dedicated to using public resources to campaign politically, but we cannot let the country fall.

(Other recommended news: What impact will the UNGRD scandal have on pension reform?)

Coming? Will you create your own party? Will the ‘green wave’ that is in the party insist on the split? Does the constitutional reform of transfuguism sound familiar to you?

The truth is, I have no concern about political mechanics. That’s not my concern, that’s not my life. I have no attachment to power or a position or a party. Parties are means to represent citizen trust and citizen causes. And if they stop being a means that honors citizen causes, then we’ll simply leave. The least important thing is the games. What really matters is thinking about the solutions. You have to be with the people, honoring the trust of the people. The games come and go. This government is going to end, Colombia is going to continue. Unfortunately, it is going to be damaged by all this sectarianism, division and corruption that we are seeing in the National Government. What corresponds to us is to accept the mistakes of the past. Find what unites us, work in all regions and cities of Colombia. There will be time for that. This is the year of learning, of studying, of thinking and there will be time for us to find a path of collective action in Colombia that is the path of solutions and that takes us out of this frustration, sectarianism and corruption that the government of the President Petro.

This is the year of learning, studying and looking for solutions. Is 2025 the year to return to the country and think about a new political project for 2026?

Every day with his eagerness. Here and now. The past is gone. The future does not exist. Here and now. And here and now we have to be on the side of the people, of the citizens, of their solutions.

President Petro, in response to Angélica Lozano, said that the entire Historical Pact voted for her for the presidency of the Senate, but our sources also tell us that people from the Pact voted for Iván Name, as a kind of revenge for not having finally supported to Inti Asprilla. Do you believe him when he says that the entire Pact respected the agreements and voted for Angelica?

The facts are the facts. Angélica competed against Iván Name and the Senate majorities, and many of the Historical Pact, preferred Iván Name and defeated Angélica. A forceful and concrete fact that proves that we are two different things, that we do not represent the same thing and that we do not have the same practices. It is precisely because we do not have equal practices that we are leaving. We will never be in a corrupt practice where ethical limits are crossed.
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​MATEO GARCÍA – POLITICAL EDITORIAL
In X: @teomagar