Bogota.- The leader of the transition team for the next Colombian government, Carlos Alonso Lucio, reiterated this Sunday that the outgoing president, Gustavo Petro, “must be tried” and anticipated that the president-elect, Abelardo de la Espriella, will report the alleged irregularities found during the review of the information provided by the outgoing Executive.
Lucio maintained in an interview with Cambio magazine that the president-elect has been “absolutely clear” that Petro “must be judged” and argued that “the change of era we are living through must have a limit to impunity”.
He added that, in his view, there are complaints against the outgoing president that are still following their course within Colombian institutions, including one filed by himself before the House Accusations Committee regarding the case of the so-called Caquetá wells, related to the Government’s actions during the kidnapping of dozens of police officers by FARC dissidents in 2023.
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The former congressman assured that the purpose of the so-called “anti-corruption transition” is not to politically persecute the outgoing government, but to fulfill the legal obligation to report findings that may constitute crimes.
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“When a public official encounters a criminal act, they are obligated to report it,” he stated, while defending that the transition team will bring any possible irregularity detected in State entities to the attention of the authorities.
Lucio was a member of the M-19 guerrilla movement, just like Petro, before that group’s demobilization in 1990, and later underwent an ideological shift that led him to become one of the most visible figures of Christian conservatism and one of De la Espriella’s main political allies.
In the interview, he also defended the transition team’s strategy, known as the “Noah’s Ark,” by pointing out that it began preparations seven months before the election in anticipation of a potential lack of coordination with the outgoing government due to the “distance” and political “hostility” between both sectors.
Likewise, he supported the possibility of promoting changes to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), which he described as a “budgetary monster,” a “bureaucratic monster,” and a “monster of inefficiency,” and assured that the president-elect will have hundreds of regulatory projects and decrees prepared for the start of his government as of August 7.
