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Colombian President Gustavo Petro called on his former bench members to resign on Sunday after a chaotic televised cabinet meeting earlier this week.
“The cabinet will undergo some changes to achieve a larger plan that meets the people’s regulations,” Petro, a former left-wing rebel panel member, said in a post on X on Sunday night. He did not provide which minister would be expelled. details.
Her resignation came hours after his environment minister and longtime Ally Susana Muhamad proposed her resignation, joining two other cabinet-level officials who left their posts after a dirty cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
During that meeting, Mohamed and other senior officials, including Vice President Francia Márquez, criticized Petro for taking scandal-ridden political revisionist Armando Benedetti as His chief of staff. Laura Sarabia is also Petro’s 30-year-old confidante, who was promoted to Foreign Minister last week despite his lack of foreign policy experience.
Both Benedetti and Sarabia are in amid a sprawling government scandal called “Nannygate” involving eavesdropping, illegal campaign financing and a lack of cash briefcases. Benedetti also faces allegations of misogyny and bullying.
Although both deny misconduct, their presence in the government is in trouble between Pietro and his traditional left allies, including Mohammed.
“As a feminist and a woman, I can’t sit on the cabinet table where we are working on progressive projects with Armando Benedetti,” Mohammed said at the cabinet meeting.
“I have submitted a letter of resignation to President Gustavo Petro for the same reason as the Cabinet meeting,” Mohammed wrote in a text message to the Financial Times on Sunday. “The president has not accepted it yet. ”
Jorge Rojas, head of the president’s executive, resigned after working with Culture Minister Juan David Correa for just one week.
Petro defended Benedetti in the six-hour wonder, believing his “crazy” was necessary in the government. He later said that infighting was the result of some of his ministers trying to position themselves before next year’s general election. Under Colombia’s constitution, the president may not seek a second term.
Colombia’s first left-wing president, Petro, took office in August 2022, pledged to be market-friendly to the country by expanding its role in pensions, health care and education while declaring war on fossil fuels The economic model is overhauled.
But he was frustrated by lawmakers who rejected his radical reform agenda while expelling cabinet ministers from the political center and replacing them with loyalists. His first finance minister, centrist and investor-friendly José Antonio Ocampo was replaced by Ricardo Bonilla in April 2023, after his corruption last December He resigned during the investigation.
“The president is a revolutionary, but the government is not,” Petro said at a meeting on Tuesday. He also claimed that cocaine is “no worse than whiskey” and that if legalized it will be “sold like wine”, even for the production of Colombian drugs, surge.
Analysts say the turmoil in the presidential palace is hindering the government’s ability to resolve many crises, including in the northeastern part of the country, where rebel groups have been displaced in this year’s Catatumbo region.
The trade war with the United States was narrowly avoided last month after Pietro initially violated the agreement to receive deported immigration. Petro, Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo, who was on the Colombian side before he was in Sarabia and worked in the job. There is largely no crazy negotiation.
“Unfortunately, this unrest is evidence that the chaos of the government affects the entire country,” said Sergio Guzmán, director of risk analysis at Colombia, Bogota consulting firm. “The government has now realized it has run out. ”
