Paloma Valencia, the persistence and work of wanting to be the first female President

On Friday, February 20, Paloma Valencia had an interview with EL COLOMBIANO and Teleantioquia at seven twenty in the morning, arriving twenty minutes early to the building: she wore purple and had light makeup, and although it was evident she carried the fatigue of a week of traveling the country—she had been on the Caribbean coast—she had a disposition ready for conversation. That morning she had woken up before five to get her daughter, little Amapola, nine years old, ready for school. In the meeting, the first question was how she managed to balance her role as a mother during election times: “One of the biggest challenges I have faced in politics, as a mother, is managing to reconcile the times of politics, which are eternal, with the times of my daughter, who is nine, and since she was little, she demands that one be with her.” An advisor from the campaign would say months later: “The only request Paloma has made of us is that at least six days a week she can sleep at home to wake up and send Amapola to school.” The girl has accompanied her mother to Congress countless times, and knows about politics, recognizes some of the most important leaders in the country; perhaps she has a similar childhood to Paloma’s, who also as a child accompanied her father, the conservative leader Ignacio Valencia López—lawyer, conservative, Representative, Senator, Ambassador, son in turn of Guillermo León Valencia Muñoz, president of the republic between 1962 and 1966—to Conservative party meetings. We spoke by phone the second week of May, I ask her how her day began: “I woke up at five in the morning. I got Amapola ready for school. After that, I got myself ready. I left for the airport. In the car, I did two interviews with community radio stations on the Caribbean coast and then I did an interview with The Economist. Right now I am on a plane to go to Paipa.” We spoke quickly, while her team fluttered around, whispering behind the receiver. I then ask her about her childhood and the symmetry with Amapola’s. “My father was a Senator for the department of Cauca, so on Sundays he received people at home and there was a line of people to attend to until two in the afternoon. We always went a lot to the conservative directory and I liked to put stamps; I accompanied him to Congress, we went to towns, they gave me a small bag with leaflets to distribute, I packed them, I organized them,” she says, laughing a little. Although raised among the most important personalities of capital life, Paloma Valencia was between two cities in her first twenty years: until she was five, she lived in Popayán, she studied primary school in Bogotá, secondary school in Popayán, and university in Bogotá, where she has remained to this day. It is no secret to anyone that Paloma Valencia seems destined to be in the highest power of the country, although she does not particularly like that idea. A quick look at her ancestors is this: grandfather president of the Republic—mentioned earlier, Guillermo León Valencia Muñoz—great-aunt promoter of women's suffrage and fervent follower of General Rojas Pinilla—Josefina Valencia Muñoz—grandfather founder of the Universidad de los Andes and senator for AD-M-19—Mario Laserna Pinzón—. —Paloma, do you believe the presidency is in your destiny? —I don’t believe anything is destined for one. I believe one achieves things by working. And when one doesn’t achieve them, it’s because one didn’t work enough. —In other words, you believe in determination and effort... —I believe in the invincible will of human beings. Paloma Valencia was born in Popayán in 1976. She grew up under the weight of her surnames. She studied Philosophy and Law at the Universidad de los Andes. She specialized in Economics and did a master’s degree in Creative Writing at New York University. She was a candidate for the House of Representatives in 2006 for the Alas Colombia party, but did not win; from that period is the photograph where she is seen smiling, with a carefree air, in the middle of Bogotá’s Plaza de Bolívar. She taught Logic and Rhetoric at the Universidad de los Andes, wrote the book Otras culpas, wrote columns in national newspapers like El Espectador, and was a radio analyst. Former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez added her to his Senate list in 2014, thus, she was an opponent of Juan Manuel Santos's government—to the Farc agreement, to the plebiscite, to the abundant advertising expenses from the House of Nariño; she proposed a single high court, exclusive chambers for the military in the JEP, and that sexual crimes against minors not be pardonable. During Gustavo Petro's government, Paloma has been the face of the opposition—she was with Miguel Uribe Turbay, assassinated last year—she has led projects such as the law for incentives in the coffee sector that authorized the program “Quiero a los cafeteros” and incentivized domestic consumption through public purchases and the PAE; she promoted the Escalera de la Formalidad 2.0 to reduce procedures for small businesses; she promoted the expansion of the gas subsidy to benefit 814,070 households in strata 1 and 2 to replace the use of firewood; she proposed an organic law focused on a mixed system with freedom of choice and the modernization of the organ transplant system, proposing the use of artificial intelligence to optimize the allocation of anatomical components. Furthermore, Paloma sued the creation of the Ministry of Equality and the pension reform; she challenged economic decrees during the emergency in La Guajira, which helped to halt the corruption disaster of the UNGRD. Paloma Valencia has been one of the most feared figures by the Petro Government, although several figures from the Historical Pact assure that she is one of the congresswomen with whom one can best speak, with whom projects can be finalized. It is the first week of May, and I visit former Minister of Environment Manuel Rodríguez Becerra at his home in Bogotá. He speaks in his library, as the capital’s light falls. He is accompanied by a golden-haired dog. He is one of the men who best knows the country’s environmental legislation and who has always accompanied Sergio Fajardo in his presidential aspirations, but this time he decided to leave when the former mayor of Medellín did not participate in La Gran Consulta por Colombia, which included Valencia, Vicky Dávila, Juan Daniel Oviedo, Enrique Peñalosa, David Luna, Mauricio Cárdenas, Juan Manuel Galán, and Aníbal Gaviria. Rodríguez Becerra is the father of Tomás Rodríguez Barraquer, economist and academic, husband of Paloma Valencia. —How did you meet Paloma? —A long time ago, when she worked at the Environmental Prosecutor’s Office, where she stayed for two years. I believe that was her first professional position; she was doing very interesting work on the Los Katíos National Natural Park, and I sought her out to exchange some ideas with her. Later, I had contact with her through Mario Laserna, her grandfather, who was a great friend of mine, the founder of the Universidad de los Andes. —And how did she meet your son Tomás? —I think at Los Andes. They were dating for a while, but they broke up at a time when Tomás was doing a doctorate at Stanford. Tomás is a very prepared man: he did his undergraduate degree in economics at the London School of Economics. He later did a master’s in Mathematics at Oxford, then a doctorate in Economics at Stanford, with an emphasis on game theory, and later he was at the European Union University, in Florence, doing a postdoc, and later he also did a postdoc at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, at the Center for Rationality Studies, directed by a Nobel Prize winner in Economics. He was also a professor at the University of Barcelona, and when he was there, they reconnected their relationship. So, many years passed, and his return to Colombia is explained by Paloma. Later they got married and had Amapola, who is a very beloved daughter, a very beloved granddaughter. Paloma, says Rodríguez Becerra, is a family woman, who tries to see her closest relatives on weekends; she likes to cook pasta and paella. With her father-in-law, she discusses environmental issues, for example, deforestation in the Amazon, a struggle that the Petro government has carried and where it has had results, not the promised ones, but significant ones. The former minister says they usually talk about politics, but it is not a divisive topic, although they may have some differences. Furthermore, regarding what Paloma said, that Tomás is “a communist,” he laughs: —No, Tomás is an academic and has helped her a lot in the campaign, he is involved with the numbers, looking at the polls. He is now dedicated to Paloma. Just yesterday I invited him to dinner here at the house, but he didn’t want to, he went to be with my granddaughter, because they have the custom of always reading together at night. Some advisors who work or have worked with the Democratic Center candidate speak. “She is a person who has matured a lot, like everyone. Fifteen years ago, she was much more explosive, confrontational. Today, she is a balanced person, with great emotional intelligence.” “When the campaign team proposes to respond to attacks or pick fights with other candidates, and they send aggressive, strong proposals, she says no, that we should tone it down. She is involved in all the details of the campaign, of what is said on social media and in press releases. She is completely attentive. Everything that comes out from the communications team has her approval.” “Uribe is very important to her, she considers him her senior advisor, her mentor, she is the first person she asks for advice from.” “She has received Abelardo’s attacks with great sadness, those videos he is making from Abelardo’s campaign are horrible, disgusting videos… she has asked Uribe for advice on what to do about this, and it can be verified that Paloma took a long time to respond to Abelardo, because we did not want to get into a fight in which we should not be. Abelardo has never been a friend of Paloma; at most, they might have seen each other at social events; the problem here is that Abelardo was a friend of President Uribe.” “That María Fernanda, Paloma Holguín, and now Vicky Dávila have turned their backs on her has caused her great disillusionment; she says it hurts her that the women with whom she competed have abandoned her… and in the Great Consultation, Vicky turned her back on us and stabbed us in the back.” In her early years in Congress, she was often seen as an angry woman, and although that was largely true, she also seemed like a social media caricature; she has made controversial statements, such as when she said that the department of Cauca should be divided into two: one where indigenous people would live and another where the rest of the people of Cauca would be, an idea that was seen as a kind of apartheid, but she has always said she was misunderstood; in a full session of Congress, when Jorge Enrique Robledo was evaluating Néstor Humberto Martínez’s role as prosecutor in the Odebrecht case—the death of the Ruta del Sol controller, Jorge Enrique Pizano, had occurred—Valencia presented videos showing Gustavo Petro receiving money in bags from the architect Simón Vélez, which was seen as a way to silence the accusations against Martínez. Paloma Valencia has arrived in Paipa and calls me again to finish the interview. —You have a painting where Uribe is depicted as the Sacred Heart… —A friend gave it to me, she wanted to make fun of me, of uribistas, and of politicians, because she says we see leaders as saints; that painting is part of a series, there are also paintings of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, Luis Carlos Galán, and other important politicians. And well, I had it somewhere and it appeared in a filming, they attacked me a lot about it, the one who scolded me the most was President Uribe, who told me: “Man, Paloma, you have to be very careful with that disrespect towards sacred figures.” —What does Uribe mean to you? —I love him very much because he has been like a bridge to reach many things. People say I follow all of Uribe’s ideas, but that’s not true. He has embraced many of my ideas. I have built many of the things the Democratic Center has defended. I entered politics hand in hand with him, Uribe has opened many doors for me, and I do consult him on many things. Every time I have a good idea, he gives it wings. People have a very strange idea of my relationship with the president, they think he calls me in the morning to give me instructions on what to do, but often it’s the opposite, I call him to propose ideas, like civil resistance to oppose the Havana agreement. I love him and I am grateful to him. Paloma became pregnant while she was a senator, she never missed her work. She recalled that moment to *Bocas* magazine: “My daughter was very sought after. My husband had fertility problems, so it was a baby that had to be actively sought. But we hadn’t gotten married yet. I remember that when I got pregnant, I thought: I have to tell President Uribe. We were entering a party meeting, and I said: ‘President, I have news for you: I’m pregnant.’ He looked at me terrified. Of course, he didn’t see it coming. Then I told him: ‘But don’t worry, I’m getting married.’ Everyone burst out laughing.” Paloma does not like destiny; she says she does not believe that merit comes by blood. Before leaving her father-in-law’s house, I asked her if she believed she would be the next president of Colombia, and she replied: “If not now, it will be in the next twelve years.”