The Diplomat
The meetings that members of the Spanish government have held in Madrid with the Colombian presidential candidate for the “Historical Pact”, Gustavo Petro, have caused irritation in the ranks of the Popular Party.
The leftist candidate was received by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, at the PSOE headquarters in Calle Ferraz, but the Vice-President, Yolanda Díaz, used an official office to hold the conversation with Petro, as did the Minister of Social Affairs, Ione Belarra, accompanied by the Secretary of State for the 2030 Agenda and Secretary General of the Communist Party, Enrique Santiago.
The PP’s Secretary for International Relations, Valentina Martínez Ferro, stressed on her Twitter account that ‘yesterday the Colombian ex-terrorist and radical candidate Petro was received in an official office of the Spanish government’. She added: “Sánchez’s foreign policy is aligned, once again, with the Puebla Group; with those who destabilise democracies and attack our history and our values”.
Gustavo Petro is currently a senator and was a member of the M19 guerrilla movement in Colombia, which demobilised in 1990. He was mayor of Bogotá between 2012 and 2015.
Petro, who is on an international tour ahead of the Colombian presidential elections scheduled for 29 May this year, participated in an event at the headquarters of UGT and also held other contacts in Madrid, including with the president of CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, and with former Prime Minister Felipe González, as well as having met in Barcelona with the mayor, Ada Colau.
