🗞️ Last week’s Cabinet crisis rumbles on with the permanent resignation of Minister of Defence Iván Velásquez this week. With Velásquez, President Gustavo Petro has lost his last long-serving minister, with him since the start of his mandate.
Following the controversial appointment of Armando Benedetti as Chief of Staff and the tense - and televised - Cabinet meeting last week, Petro has faced a wave of resignations – six frontbenchers have now resigned with permanent effect.
The protocolary resignations requested by Petro as part of his cabinet reshuffle also continue to roll in, but the President is currently in the United Arab Emirates, so the reassembly of the cabinet has been put on hold - as has the legislative agenda.
🗞️ Petro’s campaign funding is back in the spotlight this week, as Cambio magazine revealed that convicted smuggler Diego Marín - known as ‘Papa Pitufo’ or ‘Papa Smurf’ - donated 500 million pesos to Petro’s 2022 presidential campaign via Xavier Vendrell, (still) one of Petro’s inner circle.
Petro says that the money was returned upon discovery. There are, however, reports that other donations from Marín were not returned, and that he funded campaign-related flights – of which Petro claims he had no awareness.
Marín, also known as the ‘Smuggling Czar’, is about to be extradited from Portugal to Colombia for smuggling offences, though audios which emerged this week implicate him in conspiracy to murder and bribery. Petro claims that Marín is one of the country’s great money launderers - and a hinge between state actors and criminal networks.
Various parallel investigations into Petro’s campaign finances are already underway by the Attorney General's Office, the House of Representatives Impeachment Committee, and the National Electoral Council - including those processes involving his son and another renowned smugger, Samuel Santander aka the ‘Malboro Man.’
🗞️ These new revelations are added to a list of scandals during the last year, along with a controversial new chief of staff currently on trial for corruption and the diversion of funds from the Disaster Management Unit.
No surprise, then, that Colombia has fallen five places in the annual Corruption Perceptions Index, published this week by NGO Transparency International. The index scores 180 countries by their perceived levels of public sector corruption - from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (clean).
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