Ability to accommodate in power
Benedetti has been characterized by his ability to “accommodate” the power of the day and by controversies that include corruption investigations, for which his entry into Petro’s team caused suspicion and inconvenience in many sectors at the time.
Originally from Barranquilla and son of a former Minister of Communications and journalist of the same name, Benedetti studied Social Communication and began to be recognized by Colombians in 1992 when he worked as a political reporter on a television news program.
Two years later he entered politics linked to the campaign for the Senate of Juan Martín Caicedo Ferrer, of the Liberal Party, which later helped him to reach the Bogotá Council in 1998.
Benedetti has always moved like a fish in water and was elected representative to the Chamber for the period 2002-2006, became one of the bishops of the then president of Colombia, Álvaro Uribea more conservative court leader.
“Of course I am fond of Uribe. You will not find a single message from me on Twitter against the man. One can be a friend of a person and not think the same way about him (…) I distanced myself from Uribe years ago, in 2010. Despite the political differences, he was always very affectionate with me, it was a more brotherly issue,” Benedetti said in an interview with Semana last year, when he already supported Petro.
Precisely in 2010, when he had been in the Senate for four years, he became an unconditional ally of then President Juan Manuel Santos, at the time estranged from Uribe, his mentor.