The elected president, Gustavo Petro, announced this Saturday some other members of his government cabinet. These are the profiles of the new public officials who will be in charge of the various portfolios.
Irene Vélez – Ministry of Mines and Energy.
In her professional profile, Vélez says that she is “an activist researcher and full professor at the Universidad del Valle, dedicated to the critical and participatory study of environmental and agrarian conflicts, examining their intersections with historical processes of ethnic-racial and social class discrimination.”
He adds that his “training is interdisciplinary in social sciences”, with a doctorate in Political Geography (Copenhagen), a master’s degree in Cultural Studies (UNal) and an undergraduate degree in Philosophy (UNal).
In addition, she is a Fulbright researcher and serves as an assistant editor for GEOFORUM magazine. She is co-chair at the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), and has directed and participates in the Interdisciplinary Research Group on Biotechnological Innovation and Ecosocial Transformation – BioNovo (A1 in the Minciencias category).
“I have worked extensively on issues related to mercury contamination in mining contexts, the impacts of the use of agrochemicals, the dispossession of water and land, food sovereignty in rural and ethnic contexts, and environmental peace as an essential dimension of post-peace agreement transition,” the new minister points out in her profile.
“She is a woman with extensive experience in the environmental sector and who will have the arduous task of leading the transition to a non-extractivist economy,” Petro said.
Gloria Inés Ramírez – Ministry of Labor will be Gloria Inés Ramírez
The new Minister of Labor has a degree in physics and mathematics from the Technological University of Pereira and a Master’s degree in social development and education from the National Pedagogical University.
Ramírez Ríos also has within her professional training a specialty in labor rights guarantee from the University of Toledo – Spain, as well as a Diploma in economics, social policy and gender from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana.
The newly appointed Minister of Labor has held various positions throughout her professional career, among which the presidency of the Colombian federation of educators, “Fecode”, stands out. She has also been part of the executive committee of the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Colombia, “CUT”.
She was thematic adviser of the women’s house “Stella Brand” of Pereira, activist of the national women’s network, member of the bicameral caucus of women of the Congress of the Republic, representative for the Senate of the Republic before the Andean women’s parliament , president of the Peace and Humanitarian Agreement Commission of the Senate of the Republic, as well as vice president of the Seventh Permanent Constitutional Commission of the Senate of the Republic, among other positions.
“A defender of human rights and the demands of workers. She has been a woman who has fought for women’s rights and gender equity,” said the next head of state.
María Isabel Urrutia – Ministry of Sport
Gold medalist at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. Born on March 25, 1965 in Candelaria, Valle del Cauca, Urrutia started out in sports practicing athletics, an activity in which she broke several national records, but from which she left to get into weightlifting.
Once he retired from sports, Urrutia Ocoró obtained a license in Physical Education and Sports with an emphasis in Pedagogy from the Medellín Adventist University. Similarly, she specialized in Human and Women’s Rights at the Gender School of the International Criminal Court and the Inter-American Court in Washington.
That helped her launch herself into politics and she was a member of the House of Representatives from 2002 to 2010. She was a candidate for mayor of Cali in the periods of 2011 and 2015. María Isabel Urrutia, in recent years, dedicated herself to preparing the promises of the weights in Bogotá and has as an outstanding student Estiven Villar, who won the bronze medal at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2018.
“She promoted the professionalization of athletes during her time in Congress and will be a representative of the Afro-Colombian people in the cabinet,” Petro said.
Alfonso Prada – Minister of the Interior
He was the private secretary of the leader Luis Carlos Galán during his presidential campaign for the New Liberalism movement, who fell to the murderous bullets fired by the Medellín cartel. Since then, he says, he has insisted that the country have another destiny.
He was a Bogotá councilor for three terms since 1998 with the endorsement of the Liberal Party, where his colleagues named him the best councilor in Bogotá on three occasions based on the evaluation carried out by the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce, EL TIEMPO and the Corona Foundation. .
In 2010, he was launched as a representative to the Chamber for the capital of the country with the endorsement of the Green Party, in the period between 2010 and 2014, the year in which he coordinated the re-election campaign of Juan Manuel Santos in Bogotá.
Between August and October 2016, Prada took a leave of absence to work on the campaign for the Plebiscite for Peace, the issue that he is most passionate about. And that he considers one of the great shortcomings of the government of President Iván Duque.
In the recent presidential campaign, Gustavo Petro, now the president-elect, named him his head of debate. After winning the elections on June 19, Prada set himself the goal of seeking peace with the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army, Eln.
“He will be responsible for relations with the legislature and for drawing up policies on human rights, citizen participation and land use planning,” said the president-elect.
Patricia Ariza – Ministry of Culture
One of the most characteristic traits of Ariza, co-founder of the La Candelaria Theater and current director of the Colombian Theater Corporation and creator of the Women on Stage for Peace Festival, is persistence. The projects that she proposes, she carries out at all costs.
Ariza was born in Vélez, Santander, on January 27, 1946. He studied Fine Arts at the National University. But it was not in Bogotá where he met the theater. She was linked to Nadaism, and at a meeting in Cali she saw the play ‘La orgia’, by maestro Enrique Buenaventura, another benchmark of Colombian theater.
Thirty years ago, she decided to create the Women on Stage for Peace Festival, to make visible the work of women in theater, “hidden for centuries,” she says. “The first time we did it, we only had six works. Many made fun of us and even made caricatures of us. But for this year’s call, 300 groups signed up”, she commented.
Carolina Corcho – Ministry of Health
Medical surgeon from the University of Antioquia, specialist in psychiatry from the National University and master’s degree in Political Studies from the Javeriana University. Currently, Corcho is a member of the Commission for Follow-up of Judgment T-760, an advisory body of the Constitutional Court in matters of public health policy. She is also vice president of the Colombian Medical Federation and a consultant and researcher on health issues.
Corcho is president of the South Latin American Corporation, a Civil Society organization that deals with various matters of public policy, in agrarian, economic, social, health, and human rights issues.
In addition, she is co-founder and member of the Network of Progressive Women of Latin America, a stage for political parties and civil society organizations of the PAOLA group of Latin America and, additionally, she is coordinator of the PAO-Colombia group, the Support Project for organizations progressive politics in Latin America.
The specialist is co-coordinator of the promotion committee of the Social and Political Summit for the Structural Reform of the Health System, a convergence between various academic, scientific, civil society and political sectors for the debate and discussion of a proposal for structural reform of the health system that develops statutory law 1751 of 2015.
Alexander Gaviria
The new Minister of Education of the incoming government studied Civil Engineering at the Antioquia School of Engineering. He did a master’s degree in economics in the early 1990s at the Universidad de los Andes. He worked in the National Planning Department and in the Federation of Coffee Growers. He later studied for a Ph.D. in economics at the University of California. He later wrote a book on social mobility and education in Colombia. In 2005, he won the Juan Luis Londoño medal for the best economist under forty years of age.
He was deputy director of Fedesarrollo and the National Planning Department. He also coordinated the preparation of the 2002-2006 Development Plan. He then worked eight years in academia as a professor and dean of the Faculty of Economics at the Universidad de los Andes. He was named in 2010, by the Portafolio newspaper, as the best economics professor in the country. He has written dozens of articles and several books with an emphasis on social policy, poverty, inequality, and urban violence.
For eight years he wrote a weekly column in El Espectador. In 2009 she won the Simón Bolívar National Prize for Journalism. Between 2012 and 2018 he was Minister of Health, where he promoted the regulation of drug prices, contributed to the advancement of universal coverage and the equalization of benefits between the contributory and subsidized regimes.
His path in politics began with the closeness and dialogues he has had with the president of the Liberal Party, César Gaviria. Alejandro Gaviria resigned as rector of the Universidad de Los Andes and began his political career through his independent movement, Colombia Has a Future.
After attending a ‘conclave’ with various candidates from the political center, Gaviria joined the Hope Center Coalition, initially made up of Humberto de La Calle, Juan Fernando Cristo, Sergio Fajardo, Jorge Enrique Robledo and Ingrid Betancourt. The latter later left the coalition due to differences with Gaviria.
Gaviria was a presidential candidate and participated in the inter-party consultation of the Centro Esperanza Coalition that took place on March 13. Sergio Fajardo came out of there as the official candidate for the Coalition.
The new Minister of Education supported Sergio Fajardo in his presidential candidacy until, after the first round and Rodolfo Hernández and Gustavo Petro were elected, he announced his vote for the latter. When Petro was elected, he was appointed as a joint member of the Ministry of Education.
Jose Antonio Ocampo
Ivan Velasquez
Alvaro Leyva
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