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Duque, suspended yesterday by the Green Alliance, was dispatched against representative León Fredy Muñoz. He says that his party should give a “deep discussion on how to organize internally”, and that Muñoz, who has power in Antioquia, “is more focused on silencing a councilor who denounces corruption, than on building a coalition for 2022 that I beat her ”. Interview.
Daniel Duque is a Medellín councilor for the Green Alliance. Because of his opposition to the mayoralty of Daniel Quintero Calle, his party suspended him. For 60 days, he will have no voice or vote in the corporation in which he exercises political control over the mayor. The news caused an outbreak within their community and exposed with more force the differences that this organization has been experiencing for months, at least in Antioquia.
In an interview with The viewer, says that he has a very big disagreement with the representative León Fredy Muñoz, a politician with power in that department and who supports Quintero’s administration. “Pedro Vergara and León Fredy Muñoz are more focused on silencing a councilor who denounces corruption, than on building a coalition to defeat corruption in Colombia,” he said.
(Context: Alianza Verde suspends councilor for being an opponent of Daniel Quintero)
Why do you consider illegitimate the complaint of Pedro Vergara, director of the Green Alliance in Antioquia, to suspend it?
It is unheard of. The party in Antioquia has some gentlemen in the leadership who dominate and want to silence their voices of the vast majority of people that we militate and that I represent. These people, who are the majority in Antioquia, are commanded by the representative to the House, León Fredy Muñoz. He, who is accused before the Supreme Court of Justice for drug trafficking, sends his spokesman to report me to the party’s ethics committee because I am doing my job.
I think it is illegitimate because it is a minority in the community that took, at the point of cheating, the departmental leadership of Antioquia. In addition, these minority are full of positions and contracts in the Mayor’s Office of Medellín, an administration that I denounce as corrupt.
When you say your spokesperson, are you referring to Pedro Vergara?
Yes. It is the last straw and I will have to present the resources so that the party lifts me that measure that violates my political rights that I earned, walking all the streets of Medellín, without a peso, to represent the voice of a lot of people from this city.
But your party is in the governing coalition of the mayor of Daniel Quintero Calle and at the beginning of your mandate you agreed to be in it as a councilor …
The party is in the governing coalition and I made a programmatic agreement with Quintero, which is something public, but it broke when he brought Esmad to the University of Antioquia, when he appointed people from the traditional politics who do many years I was out of this city.
(You may be interested: “I changed parties only once”: Roy Barreras)
Do you consider or not that to oppose Quintero is to lack the regime of benches and other internal articles of the Green Alliance?
I have my fundamental right to conscientious objection. My party is in the coalition for an agreement that the mayor broke not only programmatically but also ethically by handing out finger contracts to his friends who financed the campaign. Thus, the Alianza Verde is in the official coalition, but the postulates and the program that the party defends is not reflected in what Quintero does.
It is somewhat contradictory …
I will ask the national directives to get out of that governing coalition. Because of Quintero’s ways of doing politics, we should be on the outside.
How is the party in Antioquia composed today, now that it speaks of a majority of Representative Muñoz?
The directives are led by the political force represented by Mr. León Fredy Muñoz, and the other factions of the party here, such as that of the senators Iván Marulanda, Juan Luis Castro, as well as that of the deputies Camilo Calle, Jorge Humberto Echeverri and that of Daniel Duque, my person, we see ourselves reduced in all the decisions of the party, as if we were a zero to the left. Together, in votes we are not even a minority, but they are in the leadership. It is one thing that is not understood.
So they don’t abide by Pedro Vergara’s decisions, even if the director is in Antioquia?
Last year we managed to tell the national leadership that we did not feel there were sufficient guarantees to meet as a party at the departmental level because there were institutional shortcomings within the party in Antioquia. What the community said at that time is that we could not meet for session without the presence of the national leadership. But I have not met with this leadership until there is permanent support from the national leadership and until there are real guarantees of participation. The departmental management, being seized of contracts in the Mayor’s Office, They will never let me express my opinions. They want to shut me up.
(Read: Velasco would leave the Liberal Party if it opted for a right-wing candidate)
Was the agreement to ignore until the departmental management is open to the election of a new director?
Not that it is ignored. The departmental and municipal management cannot meet unless we have accompaniment from the national leadership. This is in an act, to guarantee elective rights for all.
But if they talked about it and it was written in a resolution last year, why hasn’t it been resolved?
I do not know. I do not go to the meetings that Mr. Pedro Vergara cites. I will go when the national leadership accompanies us in this process.
Is your suspension the result of disputes within the greens? Specifically between the faction to which you belong, which is that of Senator Angélica Lozano and Mayor Claudia López, and that of Representative León Fredy Muñoz, through Pedro Vergara.
I want to clarify that Claudia López and Angélica Lozano have nothing to do with this discussion. The mayor is not in political meetings, she is focused on solving a pandemic in Bogotá, and Angélica Lozano is focused on Congress. It is a discussion that we have at the departmental level. I am not a traditional politician who has a political baroness.
Now, I don’t have a fight with León Fredy Muñoz. I have a fight with this administration that is hiring corrupt people. And Muñoz does not agree with me in that discussion, he believes that this administration is the best. We have a very big disagreement with Muñoz and he doesn’t want me to speak.
Do you think then that this complaint is a direct message from Representative Muñoz?
It comes from Mr. Pedro Vergara and serves the interests of León Fredy Muñoz in everything that has to do with the green’s decisions in Antioquia. In the delivery of endorsements, in head-of-list discussions, press releases, and where the government coalition is entered. So, they are happy being a coalition in a lot of municipalities, hiring in those places and setting quotas.
Do you think that this could represent conflicts in the community, especially because your accusations against Muñoz speak of everything that is contrary to the Green Alliance?
The party has valuable people who represent a majority support in the citizenship. Angélica Lozano, Catalina Ortiz, Claudia López, Iván Marulanda, Juan Luis Castro, Antonio Sanguino, Inti Asprilla, Mauricio Toro. Tvaluable ears. But the party must, once and for all, give a deep discussion about how it wants to organize itself internally. In Antioquia it works fatal because it is not represented in the highest control bodies.
If the majorities in Bogotá, Medellín, in the country, represent other people (in which León Fredy Muñoz is not present), why are we not the people who should have the capacity to influence decisions. This is won with votes, this is a political party, and Muñoz’s membership does not represent the majority of the membership in this department. We also have a voice. What seems very strange to Muñoz is that all his life he has fought against the corruption of Bello, now it does not seem horrible that the gentlemen who supported the Suárez Mira with votes, are approaching the mayor’s office.
And I want to say something: they are studying me at the National Protection Unit. I have received threats for my complaints, as have my family. And now they want to silence me in the council. I hope to speak to the ethics commission on February 9 because they are very misplaced in their procedure. They didn’t even come for tests and they leave me without voice or vote for 60 days.
(Also read: “Multilateralism has acted late”: Duque on vaccines)
His is not the only controversy that green has had. He had one in Cali in 2019 and recently in the leadership of Bogotá. Are volcanoes exploding heading into 2022?
We at the Green Alliance have some important internal discussions. There is a part of the party that wants to make an alliance with Senator Gustavo Petro and another part that we do not want. It is a discussion that is on the table, but I hope that this has nothing to do with the Medellín discussion. I am not part of the national leadership, but they are discussing with whom to make alliances. I hope that we truly represent an alternative against extremes in this country.
Beyond that, I think it is curious that now that we are making complaints of corruption, a wing of my party that has positions in the municipality wants to silence me.
Is there a break in the green party?
No. This shows that a faction wants to say how we should express our opinion in front of the mayor’s office. I find it very sad that Messrs. Pedro Vergara and León Fredy Muñoz are more focused on silencing a councilor who denounces corruption than on building a coalition to defeat corruption in Colombia.
