A Cabinet rebellion in Colombia after Petro names campaign aide chief of staff

Colombian Interior Minister Juan Fernando Cristo resigned on Monday as a political crisis shook the government of President Gustavo Petro, following his decision to appoint a controversial political operator as chief of staff.

In a letter posted on X, Cristo said that he wished to pursue objectives such as supporting the implementation of a 2016 peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia “without limitations” and wrote that “frustration should not allow Colombia to return to an era of political and social exclusion that generates violence.”

Two government ministers resigned last week after Petro named Armando Benedetti as his chief of staff, and scolded his Cabinet for not executing government programs, in a televised meeting that descended into heated discussions and tearful recriminations.

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On Sunday, Petro asked all of his government ministers to resign so that he could select a new Cabinet to tackle several challenges, including a growing security crisis. More than 50,000 people in the northeast of the country were forced to flee their homes in January as fighting surged between rebel groups.

Cristo said that he had informed Petro about his plans to resign last Thursday. In his resignation letter he did not refer to Benedetti’s appointment as chief of staff.

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The minister of the environment and the minister of culture also resigned last week, saying in interviews that they did not want to work with Benedetti.

A former senator from Colombia’s Caribbean coast, Benedetti is an experienced political operator who helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for Petro’s 2022 presidential campaign, but has also been accused of corruption and violence against women.

Unlike many members of Petro’s Cabinet, Benedetti is not affiliated with left-wing parties, and was once a supporter of the conservative leader Alvaro Uribe.

In 2023 Colombian news magazine Semana published recordings of a heated conversation between Benedetti and one of Petro’s closest aides in which Benedetti claimed he had raised almost $4 million for the Petro campaign and hinted he had obtained the money from illegal sources.

In the recordings, Benedetti threatened to take down the government if he was not rewarded with a Cabinet position for his work during the presidential campaign.

Last week Benedetti was charged with corruption by Colombia’s Supreme Court in a separate case, where he is accused of interfering illegally in government contracts awarded to a digital security company in 2017.

Under the Petro administration Benedetti has served as Colombia’s ambassador to Venezuela, and as ambassador to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, a post that had been vacant since 1999.

Last year, Benedetti’s wife filed a police complaint in Madrid, where she claimed that he had ripped off her clothes and threatened her with a knife. She has since retracted the accusations, which Spanish authorities did not pursue due to Benedetti’s diplomatic status at the time.

Some members of Petro’s cabinet have openly criticized Benedetti, saying that he cannot hold such an influential position in their progressive government. Environment Minister Susana Muhamad said during last week’s televised Cabinet meeting that “as a feminist and as a woman,” she would not sit in cabinet meetings with the former senator.

Petro defended Benedetti in the meeting, saying that he believed in second chances, and accusing those who criticized Benedetti’s appointment of being “sectarian” leaders, who are unwilling to build political coalitions.

Sergio Guzmán, a political analyst in Bogota, said that during the 2022 presidential campaign, Benedetti built alliances with politicians on the center and the right which mobilized voters for Petro, despite ideological differences with the left-wing leader.

“Petro is not just looking at the immediate impact of his Cabinet, but how to position a successor for the 2026 (presidential) election,” Guzmán said. “And for that, having a political operator is mission-critical.”