The former president Iván Duque was in the week talking about the government of President Gustavo Petro and especially referred to the Councils of Ministers who have become televised, especially the first in which there was a ‘rebellion’ against the head of state.
Duke strongly questioned that these types of meetings are being held openly and even described them as “programs in a bad mood.” As he said, he always tries to tune another program not to see what is happening in the Nariño house.
Therefore, he questioned that the transmissions are being carried out during prime schedule. “The presidential power cannot be used to abuse the right of citizens to access the media,” said.
“Trying to impose and capture the spaces of the televised agenda, especially those of triple A schedule, is an abuse before the private sector and against citizens, which also has its programming and wants to exercise the freedom to choose from,” he said.
The former president also referred to the comparison that Petro made in the face of what is happening now with the program he had of ‘prevention and action’ during the pandemic. Duke remarked that there are many differences between the two cases.
“We did it hand with television channels, we explained that this was an information vehicle and that is why a schedule from 6 pm to 7 pm was used,” he said.
The ex -president pointed out that, unlike what happens today, at that time it was not a “narcissistic monologue.”
“They are totally different. If the government intends is to invade the programming and want to do it in such an abrupt way, because it is affecting the rights of citizens and television channels,” he said.
In fact, he reminded the current administration that for that he can also use public media. “Trying to intervene in the freedom of citizens and in the functioning of the channels, is an abuse of power,” he added.
Duke reiterated his idea of ”bad mood” in these advice of ministers and launched a strong criticism for what has been seen there. “It’s very sad to see a whole government throwing knife on television,” he said.
“I think that is something that people are also unworthy, so it seems to me that they are in a bad mood. The question should be: how many citizens in Colombia are going to endure those abuses?” He added.
For the same reason, he remarked that this affects the freedom that citizens have to choose because, he explained, the presidential spells have to be used for issues of national interest and in situations that “merit”.
“I believe that the use of address is not adequate. And when the comparison is made with what was the pandemic, we were facing a health emergency at a time when for the first time we had to decree mandatory isolation,” he said.
The former president made it clear that, since his vision, of trafficking from a Petro monologue, something that is evidenced with the difference in times compared to what the ministers speak.
“Use public media and that they know how to demonstrate if they are able to remove the audience from the soap operas and the news, instead of subjecting all the people to that torture,” he concluded.
