The ministers raised their eyebrows and exchanged knowing looks when they saw Laura Sarabia take her mobile phone out of her pocket during the weekly meetings they held with the president.
They had had to leave them at the door to avoid leaks.
Sarabia, no.
It was a way to measure the trust that Gustavo Petro has in her.
As a result of what has happened these days, it is understood that it is infinite.
Petro had decided several weeks ago that Sarabia would be in charge of Dapre, the organization that is responsible for managing everything that the Presidency of Colombia represents.
He has not executed it until this Monday, but the decision was something that everyone who walks through the corridors of the Casa de Nariño, the presidential residence, knew.
Officially, it will be his number two, although in practice it has been since Petro came to power a year and a half ago.
The landing has not been easy, the president has had real and imagined problems everywhere, which has slowed down the imposition of his policies, his idea of the country.
The discourse has also prevailed that he governs from chaos, that he falls into improvisation, and there is some truth in this, although also a dose of exaggeration.
The organized head around this entire administrative-executive monster has been represented by Sarabia from day one, a meticulous person, strict with schedules, structured.
Together with Armando Benedetti, who was his boss at the time, he took care of Petro's complicated campaign throughout Colombia, which involved taking into account dozens of security and organizational details.
She did it while pregnant.
At eight months old, she said goodbye to Petro at the foot of the plane stairs in Bogotá and received him at night, sometimes in the early morning, when he returned from giving rallies in the regions.
The main actor was Benedetti, who two years ago, with a good nose, had decided to join Petro.
I saw him as president, I believed that Colombia had to go through him, no matter what.
He wasn't wrong.
Next to him was Sarabia, who had been taking care of his affairs for more than five years.
Benedetti and Sarabia, although they are not enthusiastic about each other now, were intimate.
Petro knew that Benedetti's experience in politics was necessary to bring him to power.
There were three heads of that campaign, Petro, Benedetti and, in addition, Sarabia.
That was where Petro met her and valued her as an asset that he should have at his side.
Once the elections were won, he named her her Chief of Staff, placed her in the office next to her, and sent him as ambassador to Caracas, to reestablish relations with Chavismo.
Among some devious characters that surround Venezuelan politics, it was obvious that Benedetti was going to know how to move well.
He, however, was not completely enthusiastic about the assignment.
He felt that he had made Petro president and that he deserved a higher position.
Here begins a moment of breaking that almost ends the careers of both of them, those of Benedetti and Sarabia.
He gave her instructions from a distance, she received them but did not finish carrying them out.
Little by little they separated.
Later they were involved in the case of Sarabia's babysitter, who was subjected to a polygraph by her personal escort for the theft of a briefcase with money.
She says she didn't know it was going to be done like this.
Then they intercepted the woman's phone and chased her down the street.
Benedetti was responsible for making all this public in
Semana
magazine .
The scandal lasted about ten days, enough to scare the country and cast a pall of suspicion over the entire Petro Government.
The president dismissed them both.
The Prosecutor's Office is currently investigating her for abuse of power.
But Petro soon recovered her and placed her in a relevant position, the Department of Social Prosperity (DPS).
She did not care about the prosecution's accusations or the opposition's criticism.
It took Benedetti five more months to send him to Rome, to the embassy before the FAO, despite the fact that he had dropped in some of his statements that there may have been illegal financing in the campaign.
Petro didn't care about all of these issues and he wanted to recognize the work they did alongside her during the campaign.
Sarabia's appointment, however, is on another level.
He maintained a cordial relationship with Carlos Ramón González, the until now director of Dapre.
Not a bad word, not a bad gesture.
On the contrary, there was an effort by both to get along.
But the collision was evident, they were fighting for the same piece of power.
González's team, a veteran Green Alliance politician, did not want to see Sarabia even in painting.
They believed that she overlapped her duties.
It was a real fight.
The day that Real Madrid fired Jorge Valdano as general director for his public confrontation with the coach, who was José Mourinho, they asked him if he felt that Florentino Pérez, the president, had tipped the balance towards one of the two.
Valdano, pure elegance, pure acceptance of defeat, one of the things that people least recognize, said that it was evident that he was the defeated one and the Portuguese coach the winner.
In this case, it is also evident that Sarabia has won.
In case there was any doubt, he concentrates all presidential power.
Petro and Sarabia are now the same thing.
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