Minister, I want to ask him about that famous Council of Ministers, where there was a storm around his name. France Márquez, Susana Muhamad, all complaining about the arrival of Benedetti at that time as head of dispatch. Now he is the Minister of the Interior and the truth is that you were still there, he won the political fight; The vice president is still the vice president, in the ministers there were changes, and you in the end won that political pulse, if you want. How do you feel today with all your fellow ministers?
Armando Benedetti (AB): Well, what happened to me hurt and I have no resentment against her. It hurt me first for me, because of the way they attacked me, as they mistreated me, I have not had anything against them.
On the contrary, I was part of the project where they were also with President Petro. He had won with a wide front, also very large, with a spectrum of the center and that, therefore, we were in the same ship, and from one moment to another I smelled ugly, when I had a lot to do with the strategy and how the campaign was developed for Congress.
And it turns out that from one moment to another it was like the ugly duckling, without having realized what it meant badly for them and without having done absolutely anything, they mistreated me, but I have also been understanding that I was an excuse for internal fights within them. So, that is what has happened, but I swear I have no resentment with any of them.
With one of them I have found myself, I talk to them, I greet myself with them with the greatest respect and the greatest affection and I have had that same characteristic from day zero to this day.
: And Susana Muhamad will be a planning director? She was one of those who raised her hand, cried and said that under no circumstances would she sit where Armando Benedetti was. How to understand that, Minister?
AB: I don’t have a resentment against her. I cannot speak for what is the jurisdiction of the president and her will whether or not for that portfolio.
: And that idea or that reality that there was, minister, a sides in dispute in the House of Nariño, a war between a front of which some ministers, senior officials and another side with his arrival were part, it ended?
AB: I would believe that always, and I am not talking about Casa de Nariño at this time, in any power center, in the Vatican himself, that type of ego, of variety, of friendly fire is given. Just as I told him that he had hurt and hurts me what they did to me, I also hurt what they were doing to the president and I tell him with great affection and with much feeling that it hurt and it hurts when that kind of fire friend to the only one who really harms is the President of the Republic.
And it would seem that many officials do not understand that beyond that if they are right, that if it is true or not, it is important that they understand that they do a lot of damage to the president. Sometimes the lack of experience in many of the situations prevails and, therefore, the government looks quite messy, but it has to do with that friendly fire ends up affecting the president.
AB: The Our Father was praying. I am Catholic, for example, yesterday I was Mass and commune.
