Las entrevistas de Julio Sánchez Cristo · Julio Sánchez Cristo y Caracol Pódcast

Paloma Valencia: “No hablo con Abelardo ni antes ni ahora”

April 10, 2026·29 min·2 clips

Paloma Valencia warns that Colombia is on a path to autocracy, not democracy, amid her presidential campaign.

1. Las entrevistas de Julio Sánchez Cristo features Colombian senator and presidential candidate Paloma Valencia in a wide-ranging interview about the 2026 presidential race. 2. Host Julio Sánchez Cristo leads alongside co-hosts Marcela and Juan Pablo; Valencia is a sitting senator from the Centro Democrático party running against left-wing rival Iván Cepeda. 3. The episode's core question is whether Valencia can build a cross-partisan coalition without abandoning her uribista identity or her centrist VP running mate Juan Daniel Oviedo. 4. Valencia says she does not believe Cepeda can win in the first round, arguing his presidency would capture the Constitutional Court, the Bank of the Republic, and the military through further purges of 150 generals. 5. On political alliances, she says any Colombian is welcome in her campaign provided they have 'no blood on their hands and no link to corruption,' and she explicitly refuses to offer government positions before winning. 6. She names four urgent crises for the next president: the fiscal crisis, an energy shortage she says could cause nationwide outages in October and November, a security situation recalling the worst of Colombia's past, and a health system leaving nearly 10 million procedures delayed. 7. Valencia accuses Cepeda of close relationships with illegal armed groups, claiming those groups 'ask Colombians at gunpoint to vote for Cepeda' in territorial areas. 8. On her Senate statement 'don't send me to be killed,' she clarifies it was a plea, not an accusation, linking the risk to her denunciations of Calarca's infiltration of state institutions and the Second Marquetalia's origins in Cepeda's legal theory freeing Iván Márquez and Santrich. 9. On peace policy, she argues the country must restore legality—ending the pattern of rewarding criminals while 5.6 million Colombians live in extreme poverty and 16 million are poor—rather than renaming existing peace frameworks. 10. On the economy, she lists four windfalls: cocaine at 3,700 metric tons (vs. 200 in the Escobar era), gold at $5,000/oz extracted by the ton, $15 billion in remittances, and the largest coffee harvest in history with high global prices. 11. She argues these are 'lotteries,' not evidence of productivity growth or industrial investment, and concludes consumption is being financed largely by illicit money. 12. On government policy failures in security, she says the pattern of seeing mistakes and persisting in them is 'not a mistake, it is a plan.' 13. On Alejandro Gaviria, former Petro health minister, she says he is welcome: 'I don't see blood on his hands, I don't see corruption.' 14. On Roy Barreras, she deflects by noting he already said he does not want to join, which removes her need to refuse him. 15. On Álvaro Uribe, she says she will 'die a Uribista' but will govern as herself, describing the dual criticism—'Uribe will control you' versus 'you will betray Uribe'—as evidence she occupies a balanced position. 16. On her VP decision, she describes a list of five candidates, selecting Oviedo because of shared obsessions with informality and social policy, telling him: 'I invite you to build within the difference—I don't want you to become a Uribista or change your shoes.' 17. The interview is conducted by three hosts simultaneously pressing her on contradictions, alliances, and personal accusations; Valencia's tone is direct, combative, and statistic-heavy. 18. The episode's energy is high-stakes and confrontational, with the hosts testing her on every major vulnerability in her candidacy. 19. Colombian voters and political observers interested in the 2026 race, particularly the democratic-center versus left-populist contest, will find this most useful. 20. Listeners unfamiliar with Colombian party structures, armed group histories, and peace-process debates will find the dense references difficult to follow.

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Las entrevistas de Julio Sánchez Cristo