Gustavo Petro’s campaign says that Rodolfo Hernández has no will for the debate to take place

The campaign of the leftist candidate for the Presidency of Colombia, Gustavo Petroassured this Thursday that his rival, Rodolfo Hernandez“has no will” to attend the debate that a court ordered to be held, after he refused to attend any meeting of this type.

“What we have verified today is that Rodolfo Hernández has no desire to attend the debate”argued Petro’s chief debater, Alphonse Pradaupon leaving a meeting with the Colombian National Radio Television Public Media System (RTVC), in charge of organizing the event.

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The Superior Court of Bogotá accepted a tutela action (recurso de amparo) that ordered the holding of a debate between the candidates of the ballotto which Petro already confirmed yesterday that he would attend and Hernández did the same today, but imposing certain conditions such as the topics to be discussed, the presenters or that it should be held in his city, Bucaramanga.

The resolution of the high court said that the candidates had to negotiate the rules and topics today and jointly request RTVC to hold the debate, for which Prada, as manager of Petro’s campaign, went to the headquarters of the public entity to speak.

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However, the strategist Petro assured that “None of his (Hernandez’s) compromisers arrived” and there “he did not send absolutely any type of reason, in such a way that we clearly verify that there is no will to hold the debate.”

“We have been ready to do so since before there was a judicial decision, but in compliance with the judicial decision we have ratified our will that the Colombian people deserve to see live and direct the theses of each of the campaigns” , Prada assured.

THE CONDITIONS OF HERNÁNDEZ

After what Petro did not attend several of the ten debates that were held before the first round of May 29, Hernandez He refused after finishing second in those elections to go to more discussions because he assured that the format did not allow him to express his ideas and proposals.

For this reason, several organizations presented the guardianship before the judge, who finally ruled that a debate would have to be held, just four days before the second round.

Hernández, a billionaire construction businessman, sent a letter to his rival this morning accepting participation in the debate, but imposed several conditionssuch as that said meeting is held in Bucaramanga, the city of which he was mayor or that it is led by the director of the Semana Magazine, Vicky Dávila, and the journalists of La FM Darcy Quinn and RCN News Jessica de la Peña, as well as “ three men that we choose by common consent”.

He also imposed topics to be discussed in the debate, which are not about the proposals that concern the government programsbut about ins and outs of the electoral campaigns themselves such as “dirty campaign to smear political contenders”, “political alliances of the candidates” or the “abusive use of campaign budget resources”.

Petro, senator and former mayor of Bogotá, accepted these conditions of the populist candidate in a public letter in which he clarified that he does not put “conditions on this debate. None”, and which leaves “all the details of the debate” in the hands of RTVC: from the moderators, to the topics, including of course those that you raise.

“We do not propose any type of limitation; we accept the rules that they propose, the rules of intervention times in the duration of the debate, the city in which you want it to take place; we accept the rules, we don’t want limits on journalists,” reiterated Prada, who called on Hernández’s campaign so that “any kind of final agreement can be made in the afternoon.”

However, time is running out for the holding of said meeting, since there are three days left before the second round of elections is held, in which next Sunday the successor to President Iván Duque will be elected.

Source: Elcomercio

Ronald Payne

I, Ronald Payne, am a journalist and author who dedicated his life to telling the stories that need to be said. I have over 7 years of experience as a reporter and editor, covering everything from politics to business to crime.