( Spanish) — Sofía Petro Alcocer is one of the five children of Gustavo Petro, the president-elect of Colombia, so her life has been transversely marked by politics.
“Since I can remember, I have always, always been in politics, because I was born and he was already involved in this,” Petro Alcocer said in an interview with Carolina Sanín in Mesa Capital of Canal Capitalthe public channel of Bogotá, speaking about his father’s political campaigns, both for the Presidency and for the Mayor’s Office of Bogotá.
“It was super-shocking,” he recalled Petro’s speech in 2013 when he was removed as mayor of Bogota after a disciplinary investigation into his handling of a crisis related to the city’s garbage collection system.
During the 2022 presidential campaign, Petro Alcocer was in the spotlight for his active participation in the campaign. So much so that during his father’s victory speech on June 19, when Petro greeted his family, the crowd erupted in applause and chanted his name.
When she talks about her dad, she describes him as a peaceful, quiet persona consistent, non-authoritarian man, and although he is stubborn, she says that she feels that he listens to her.
“He has a strong personality, he is stubborn, but with me I feel that he softens,” said Petro Alcocer about his relationship with his father. “He receives my criticism, although many times he discusses some with which we do not agree. I know that deep down my words do reach him.”
Who is Sofia Petro Alcocer?
Sofía Petro Alcocer (Bogotá, 2002) is one of the daughters of Gustavo Petro’s marriage to Verónica Alcocer. She traveled abroad to attend university once she finished high school at the French Lyceum. She is now studying Economics and Sociology in Paris, from where she returned this year to do her internship in the Petro campaign.
“I left at first because it seemed very hard to go to university, to leave school… because they knew me since I was little. As in the end, I was more Sofia, the daughter of,” he told Carolina Sanín of Canal Capital.
Sofía says that her relationship with Colombia has two faces: on the one hand, she says, she feels very Colombian and says that she wants to make her life, work and contribute to this country, but on the other, she says that she feels contradicted because there she never He has been able to have a normal life, such as walking quietly in the street without having a bodyguard, or being who he is regardless of the political weight of his last name.
Meanwhile, Petro says he is eco-conscious and tries to follow fashion with responsible consumption, such as wearing second-hand clothes and accessories.
“I try to be very responsible in consumption. Many people say that it is useless. I think we need people with an ecological conscience to have the big changes and the big decisions that cannot be made right now,” he said in the interview with Canal. Capital.
“We must occupy all spaces with our bodies” -Marielle Franco. Yes, also the polls ???
For peace, for women, for the environment, for a change at last.thanks real love foundation and well tesas for the garments? pic.twitter.com/ErzsDMbPJR
– Sofía Petro Alcocer (@sofiapetroa) June 19, 2022
feminism and social consciousness
Petro Alcocer won the eyes of many who followed the 2022 presidential campaign. It was the first time that the 20-year-old had voted in a general election. And her activism so much online What offlineearned him applause from some sectors, perhaps especially from young progressives.
One of the things she has been most vocal about is her identification as a feminist. She says that this feminism should be something “pedagogical, not a revenge”.
“A feminism that sits down to dialogue with all sectors of society. Yes, also with men… I want my dad, my brother, my boyfriend, to accompany me to disembark from the patriarchy, teach them how,” he said in his Twitter account on March 8.
“We need everyone to build a better world and I invite my cis male followers to reflect on what we claim from feminism”, added.
He has a YouTube channel called Get to know them where she recounts the stories of Colombian women and the struggles of women leaders.
the controversies
And since she became the center of attention during the critical months of the campaign, she was not without controversy.
In mid-July, Sofia Petro gave an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País in which he naturally spoke of politics. At that time, a few days before the second presidential round, when the race between Gustavo Petro and his opponent Rodolfo Hernandez was very close, the young woman referred to a possible victory for Hernández, which sparked a controversy.
“We cannot let him be president,” Petro Alcocer said of Rodolfo Hernández. “Because I think, in my opinion, if it were to be the case, it could generate a much worse social explosion than last year.”
The criticism was immediate and the ruling Democratic Center party, Petro’s staunchest opponent, said that Sofia Petro’s words were a “warning” of what could happen if Petro lost.
“It is very clear to us the type of people who seek to come to power. Sofía Petro, daughter of the candidate of the Historical Pact, warns of a huge social explosion in the event of her father’s defeat,” tweeted the Democratic Center.
But she responded on her social networks that the attacks against her for this interview are “madness and lies.”
“When they don’t have anything bad to say about one, they make it up. When they don’t have a plot, they have no choice but to say crazy things and lies”, wrote on Twitter. “To those people with so much hatred I can only wish, in good faith, that they can heal their hearts.”
Days after, celebrated the meeting of his fatherthe president-elect, with former president Álvaro Uribe, the two faces of the polarization of Colombia: “Understand that we must live with those who think differently, ask for forgiveness, forgive, with sincerity, build. Colombia has been condemned to repeat its violent history once and again. Beyond the meeting, it is a task, a first step to be able to heal ourselves”.
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