In the hours of video that SEMANA has in its possession, regarding the strategy meetings of the Historical Pact, there is one in particular that stands out. Although the first-level leaders of that leftist alliance are not in it, part of the advisers and teams that surround the candidate Gustavo Petro are.
The meeting is led by Sebastián Guanumen, the young strategist who has been in the eye of the hurricane for giving guidelines for the dirty anti-Fico campaignwith which they invented and exaggerated information to torpedo the candidacy of the former mayor of Medellín.
In this particular video, Guanumen is with other youth from the Historical Pact in Bogotá. Some, from what they mention in the conversation, are advisers to other candidates for Congress; for example, there is a person Susana, who works with Gustavo Bolívar; Another young woman says that she advises Alirio Uribe, a congressman-elect for the Pact, among others. Virtually, there are other people, some of them outside the country like María Cepeda Castro, sister of Senator Iván Cepeda and who constantly intervenes and gives recommendations.
During the more than three hours that this meeting lasted in a room in Bogotá, Guanumen begins by explaining that not only must they defend themselves, but they must also attack and implies that anything goes.
“We are going to have a line B to hit the opponent, but the candidates somehow have to be more open to dialogue,” he asks.
In other words, they might not officially attack, but they would have other networks and accounts to create content, even false or exaggerated, regarding other candidates, especially Federico Gutiérrez, as they recognized throughout the meeting.
“It is better that we do not record this. Do not record this because it is the strategy “asks Guanumen, knowing what might happen.
Throughout the meeting they discuss, through different methodologies guided by Guanumen, which may be those fields of action in which they can attack. One of them is called “contrast” and sought to think how to differentiate itself from Federico Gutiérrez.
There, a woman takes the floor and begins to outline what they should do. “Make the warehouses effective, put the warehouses in operation. Articulating messages on our networks, especially WhatsApp, is the direct, intimate element that makes you think,” he says.
In all the strategy there is something they call the “grey campaign”, which they refer to to say that it is not so clean, but that you should play dirty. “In the gray campaign think regarding the ‘fake news’, memes, humor and sarcasm. It is a very important element in persuasion”, assures the woman.
At one point, he even says that the migration of Venezuelans to the country should be held responsible for President Iván Duque and not Nicolás Maduro, who has been the cause of it.
“The issue of Venezuelans in Colombia is controversial, what is that origin that would have to do a little with the current government party. (You have to) explode Duke. What does he mean by that? All the disastrous results, the data of the mismanagement of corruption, of what is stolen, of all that, charge it to this government; rather, it is the protagonist of all evils”, mentions the woman.
Then he indicates that Duke and Fico must be related by these facts to link the entire message. “And following that link Duke to Fico. So Fico is Duque, Duque is Fico and it might be worse, that’s what’s interesting, they’re the same and it might be worse”, he says.
In the midst of brainstorming, he also refers to the former Team for Colombia candidate saying that he should be compared to Quiko, the character of the Chavo del 8to want to show him as “clumsy” and “spoiled”. “Fico represents stupidity sometimes, he is pampered, clumsy, spoiled,” he mentions.
It also asks to generate a scenario of guilt and get rid of responsibility. “We have not governed, it is not our fault,” she says. “Starting to generate the culprit can be interesting,” she asks. To which Guanumen adds: “Or invent the culprit.”
The woman ends by saying that Federico Gutiérrez should be related to various crimes and at the end mentions putting him in the community of former President Álvaro Uribe. “Fico is the worst for Antioquia, Fico is the Office of Envigado, Fico is the Democratic Center.”
The fact generates that some present take the spokesman and begin to give ideas of how through a dirty campaign they can torpedo the figure of Federico Gutiérrez. “If one day there is news regarding this (…) feed it with false information associating Fico, with things that people socially understand as detestable,” asks another young Petrista.
And he adds that everything must be done from fake profiles. “Playing with uribismo from the inside and with false profiles, obviously (…) There is a sector of Uribismo that thinks that Duque was the infiltrator of the left within the right, so continue playing, saying that he is another of the covered ones.
Faced with the multiple ideas of a dirty campaign, some attendees consider that this is unethical and claim that if they are proposing change, the politics of love and other values they profess, they cannot act as other campaigns would.
“Many people are bothered, but we cannot be consistent if we use those same tactics and what other types of journalists say, supposedly related to the project or people as such. If we are going to act in this way, demanding respect for this to happen, then we cannot fall for this propaganda. I know that it is part of the dynamics, but it is important to identify why it exacerbates polarization, which is what subtracts points from Gustavo Petro. We must not carry out a gray or black campaign, but a campaign of love and life”, says a young man who refutes the dirty war strategy.
The request causes the immediate rejection of Guanumen and other advisers. The strategist, who led the entire meeting, emphasizes that at the beginning of the meeting he highlighted that there is an official campaign and the so-called “line B” and interrupts the young man who made the claim.
“No, quickly to answer that, what we raised from the beginning is that there is an official line of contrast and an unofficial one that does not go with the logos of the Pact, that doesn’t go with the logos of France or Petro or anything, but we can’t…, that is, ad doors following a tough battle, and they are already playing dirty games with us, we have to be very intelligent, how we generate some defense narratives, but we cannot stay thinking that people will understand everything and others. We have to have a defense and advance strategy once morest all that. We are not going to do it with visible faces,” says Guanumen.
The enclosure is divided. Some young people side with the strategist, while others accompany the one who asked to run a clean campaign. In the middle of that discussion, another of those who asks to act ethically sentences: “The first time the press finds out who is doing (this), everything is screwed up.”
To which Guanumen replies: “That’s why no one can find out.” Which causes laughter from all attendees.
The young man returns and replies: “The press is going to find out”, like someone who predicts what is going to happen.
In recent days, SEMANA had access to hours of recording of Gustavo Petro’s campaign, in which the strategy they used once morest other candidates, especially Federico Gutiérrez, is evident. They sought to affect him at the point of lies and exaggerations. Today, Guanumen, the young strategist who directed those meetings, is in the eye of the hurricane for directing several of those dirty strategies of the campaign.
