The late Defense Minister was preparing to begin his presidential campaign with the intention of 2022. He was two months from the deadline to resign and undertake a goal he had already pursued: to reach the House of Nariño.
The political country woke up shaken by the mourning of tragic news: Carlos Holmes Trujillo, Minister of Defense, died this Tuesday morning due to pneumonia caused by COVID-19. He had been hospitalized urgently since last January 12 and today at almost 2 in the morning they reported his death.
(Read: Carlos Holmes Trujillo, Minister of Defense, for COVID-19 died)
The death of the senior civil servant marks three days of national mourning, announced this morning by President Ivan Duc, but not only that. It certainly generated an earthquake inside the Democratic Center, the ruling party, as Trujillo was one of its main tokens to succeed Duke in 2022.
It was a fact that the minister had planned to resign from his post to fully plant his aspiration and thus fulfill his dream: to arrive at the House of Nariño to govern the Colombians. He was two months away from the deadline to do so: ceasing to be a civil servant 12 months prior to the election date prevented him from being disqualified from running as a candidate.
(Read this profile: Carlos Holmes Trujillo, the loyal squire of Duke)
In the last part of his political career, Carlos Holmes Trujillo had clarified his path to the presidency. After participating in several governments, he wanted to be the candidate of uribismo in 2013, but lost to Óscar Iván Zuluga, who aspired against Juan Manuel Santos, but lost. The same happened in the last electoral contest in which he wasted a candidacy against that of today’s President Duc.
In the current political landscape, various figures of uribism revealed that, in fact, the campaign was Trujillo’s next step and that his party supported him. “Our last conversation was long, we talked about all issues. His resignation was a fact. My gratitude to him is infinite; for everything he did for me, and for everything he did for Colombia.” , said Senator Coloma Valencia on Fm.
(To remember: The last public act of the Minister of Defense: in the Magdalena and in the middle of controversy)
Similarly, columnist and friend Ernesto Yamhure told Week that Trujillo planned to resign in the second week of February so as not to disqualify him. “But he still had this anguish in his heart that he had a duty to fulfill, a task to finish in the Ministry of Defense and that was what he was aiming for. He had like this crossroads in his soul between his legitimate personal aspiration and his commitment to the country at the forefront of the Defense portfolio, ”he told the portal.
That being the case, his death will represent, in the coming months, a movement inside the Democratic Center to replace the figure of Trujillo in the next election contest. Not without first, saying goodbye to Minister of Defense.
“Dr. Carlos Holmes Trujillo embodied all the desirable virtues in a politician: firmness in convictions, enforceability, incorruptible will and infinite love for Colombia. He was a statesman who had the country in his head, knew deeply his illnesses and always went “His life must represent an example to follow for future generations who want to contribute to the construction of a better Colombia. Carlos Holmes Trujillo was the great knight of politics.” description made by the Uribista community of the official in the statement issued by the bench of the Democratic Center to mourn this loss.