Councilor Diego Cancino, from the Green Alliance, did not deny the possibility of being a candidate for the mayoralty of Bogotá and replacing his fellow party member Claudia López, of whom he has been a harsh opponent.
THE NEW CENTURY: Does the idea of being a candidate ring a bell?
DIEGO CANCINO: The idea of working for the region and for Bogotá sounds familiar to me, and if the best scenario is the mayor’s office, it’s fine, but the big bet is to transform this region of Cundinamarca and Bogotá from pedagogy, from cultural transformation and above all with the fight against corruption and always respecting life.
ENS: When would you make the final decision about running for mayor?
DC: I have set a deadline to see what is the best scenario to influence this region and the deadline that I set for myself is a maximum of 30 days.
ENS: How are the charges within the party? What other candidates are emerging within the Green Alliance?
DC: The charges within the party have to be clear and that has not been seen. At this moment, what we have to say is that life is sacred, resources are sacred, and in this mayor’s office, whoever represents those flags is not expressing them forcefully. That is to say, here the shortcuts that have existed in the face of public resources are overlapping and, above all, disappearances are being denied. That is to say, life is not sacred for a sector of my party that is led from the mayor’s office. And so at this moment, from the party we have to uphold the principles and say: life is sacred, just like public resources. And demand from the mayoress, that she is from my party, an act of coherence in front of life and in front of public resources. She denies what has happened in this city and that is infamous.
ENS: How would you rate the management of the current mayoress?
DC: I would classify her as authoritarian, who does not recognize the voice of the people. I would classify it as despotic, as incoherent, because she said that there was not going to be a Transmilenio on the Seventh and today Transmilenio is going on the Seventh, and I would classify it as a denial of the principles of the Green Party. On a scale of one to ten, she would give it a three. The city has gone backwards.
ENS: Do you see another possible candidate within your community?
DC: We need to create a broad front between the Historical Pact, the Green Party, progressive liberals and that in this change in which we are going also influences the transformation of Bogotá and that is a coherent, consistent person, who cares for public resources and cares for the life. What needs to be done beyond the names is to put together a consultation, a programmatic, political and consultation bet that gives strength to a collective proposal resulting from a consultation that helps transform Bogotá.
ENS: What is the biggest problem in Bogotá right now?
DC: The generation of mistrust. We have to build trust, because we have spent three and a half years where trust has been destroyed, and with trust you can transform behaviors from fear to security so that mobility improves. You can transform attitudes of collective action to care for the environment. The cement of Bogotá has to be called trust and that is what Bogotá has destroyed in these three years.
ENS: What would be your proposal with reference to the subway?
DC: The evaluation and technical study that Petro has requested is absolutely pertinent, because the underground metro transports twice as many people as the elevated metro, but it also has much lower mobility impacts than the elevated metro and has more positive economic impacts than the elevated metro. If the underground does not have much higher costs than the elevated one and can technically be developed without slowing down the process in which it is going, I agree with the underground metro.