The presidential campaign in Colombia has left a series of episodes that have ignited public debate. On Monday, the candidate of the Historic Pact, Iván Cepeda, gathered more than 3,000 people in Sincelejo despite the law prohibiting public events in the week prior to the elections. Cepeda has argued that his event was behind closed doors and that the rule does not set a number of attendees for a meeting to be understood as private.
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Added to this is Senator Paloma Valencia, who stated that she will “hunt like rats” those who engage in extortion, a phrase that her critics called incendiary. The vice-presidential running mate of the established right-wing candidate, Juan Daniel Oviedo, on the other hand, openly admitted to having used drugs on multiple occasions, a statement that generated immediate controversy.
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Worse is the ultra Abelardo de la Espriella who accumulates the most talked-about episodes. In one of them, he told Malú Fernández, a presenter with more than 35 years of career, “ignorance is bold” when she asked him about an old phrase of his in which he stated that ethics has nothing to do with law. “You don’t understand the difference because you have no training in law nor in philosophy of law,” added the candidate. In another episode, during a podcast, De la Espriella boasted that the size of his genitals had earned him female support and asked the only woman at the table to zoom in on a photo on his phone: “What do you see here, darling? Don’t be shy.”
