The Attorney General’s Office decided to initiate a disciplinary investigation and provisionally suspend the mayor of Medellín, Daniel Quintero Calle, from officefor his alleged and repeated participation in politics in the current electoral contest.
In her announcement, Attorney General Margarita Cabello reiterated that “public servants must take into account that intervention in politics is not reduced to the express request to vote for a candidate, but rather contemplates any action that generates in the collective imagination the making of alliances or support that break with the balance of the electoral contest”.
Cabello warned that until “there is no statutory law, no public servant, from the lowest rank to the highest level, can use the position to participate in the activities of political parties and movements and in political controversies, without prejudice to the rights provided for in the Constitution and the law.”
The senior official also spoke about the use of social networks and the media as “instruments” that can “affect the impartiality that should characterize this process.”
The decision comes hours after the mayor himself uploaded a video to his Twitter account in which, between jokes, he talks about “change, first,” in an implicit allusion to the slogan that Gustavo Petro’s campaign has used. to the Presidency of the Republic.
However, there are several complaints that rest in the Public Ministry about Quintero’s alleged participation in politics, which has become increasingly evident with the resignation of six of the members of his government team to immediately join the campaign. of the Historical Pact, the last three just last Monday after participating in a government council.
In fact, Quintero’s affinity with the Historical Pact was made evident on the same day of the legislative elections, when the president allowed himself to be photographed holding the cards that fully identified the movement that ended up electing Gustavo Petro as its presidential candidate.
Quintero is one of the seven leaders investigated by the Public Ministry for the apparent use of his position to allegedly participate in the activities of a political party or movement, in this case the Historical Pact, despite the fact that it is a prohibited practice.
The closeness of the mayor of Medellín with the presidential candidate has been so evident that his wife, Diana Osorio, who is also the city’s social manager, has shared public events with Verónica Alcocer, Petro’s wife.
In addition, several officials from the Mayor’s Office have left their positions to join the campaign of the candidate of the Historical Pact, a situation that does not represent irregularities, but that demonstrates the proximity between both political leaders.