Far-right Senator Maria Fernanda Cabal and her husband, ranchers’ federation chief Jose Felix Lafaurie, left the Democratic Center (CD), claiming that the far right party’s primary result were “adulterated.”
In a letter to the party, the couple said “we don’t want to continue” in the CD after Cabal gave up a spot on the Senate candidates’ list for a failed attempt to run for president.
According to Cabal and Lafaurie, the primary results that made Senator Paloma Valencia the CD’s presidential candidate were “adulterated with the evident participation of Lester Toledo, Nubia Stella Martinez and Jose Obdulio Gaviria,” the cousin of late drug lord Pablo Escobar.
The couple aid that they hoped that the party would allow them to secede “to allow Maria Fernanda to form her own political organization in line with the party statutes and current electoral regulations.”
In a response, the said said that the selection process was “legitimate, rigorous and totally transparent,” and counted on the support of Cabal until after she lost.
The party additionally stressed that all members of the party’s board “fully trust and support” CD director Gabriel Jaime Vallejo and “reaffirm their full trust in [former President] Alvaro Uribe Velez, founding president and the invaluable leader of our fatherland.”
The CD said to “lament” the resignation of Lafaurie, but ignored the dissident couple’s call for a formal secession from the party.
The split is the latest in a series that have fractured what is currently the most powerful opponents of President Gustavo Petro in Congress.
Much of the infighting followed the assassination of one of the CD’s former primary candidates, Senator Miguel Uribe, in June of last year.
The father of the late Senate chief was allowed to take his place, but was kicked out of the party ahead of the primary election because he allegedly had been talking to a rival presidential candidate on the far-right.
Related posts:
