New Colombian President Gustavo Petro invites Gustavo Petro to his inauguration | Globalism
2 min readIn 2021, Gustavo Petro and I received an invitation from the Colombian politician Gustavo Petro: If he wins the election for the presidency, he will invite me to take office.
This conversation took place on a Colombian TV show. That year, as elections in Colombia approached and our names were similar — if it weren’t for an accent, they would have been identical — I started getting more signals than usual, especially on Twitter — mostly swearing from anti-Petro voters. I turned to a sticker on WhatsApp.
Whatsapp sticker with image of Gustavo Petro, a Brazilian journalist mistaken for Gustavo Petro, President-elect of Colombia. Photo: personal archive
Late on Sunday night (19), hours after Gustavo Petro’s victory was announced, I was leaving g 1 When I receive a call. Andres Hernandez was an advisor to the president-elect.
I actually spoke to Hernández about the interview – she mentioned that he had received many insults from Colombians, and he said I could call him if necessary – and he left the number on my cell phone. In the end,
“I invite you to Gustavo Petro’s inauguration, as he promised,” he said.
Even with the promise, I couldn’t believe that would happen. I answered him in Portuguese, tense
“I am honored, but not important. It is better to invite presidents and politicians. Not me.”
Hernandez replied: “You are the namesake of the President of Colombia and you are invited. We will work out the details this week.”
She asked him to send congratulations and hugs to the new boss, which he said. It is not every day that someone in your name takes the most important job in a country.
Thus, I was officially invited to the inauguration of the new president of Colombia. Also, my social media has exploded. I must have had about 4,000 new followers from Colombia alone from Sunday night to Monday morning. It’s a kind of strange situation.
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