Benedetti returns as Petro's direct advisor after drug rehabilitation, surprising political comeback

Armando Benedetti walked out of the presidential residence in Bogotá on a Monday afternoon and announced he had just been named a direct political advisor to President Gustavo Petro, with an office on the third floor, steps from the president's own. Days earlier, he had submitted a resignation letter from his post as ambassador to the FAO, citing personal health matters and the need to step back from public life. The reversal was so sudden, so complete, that it sent tremors through Colombian political circles.

Benedetti has a gift for reinvention. Months before, he had been Petro's campaign chief—a role that mattered. But after the election, he was sidelined. He wanted a ministry; instead, he got an ambassadorship to Rome. The slight festered. He began leaking damaging information: details about Laura Sarabia, Petro's number two, including allegations about a missing bag of cash and a polygraph test administered to her nanny. Then came the audio recordings, released to Semana magazine, in which Benedetti threatened Sarabia on the phone, his voice rising with menace. "We'll all go down," he said. "We'll all end up in prison." Both he and Sarabia were removed from their positions. But Sarabia, whom Petro trusted deeply, was brought back. She was made director of the presidential affairs office—a position of genuine influence. Benedetti, by contrast, seemed finished.

Then came the letter about rehabilitation. In a clinic in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Benedetti spent thirty-five days in treatment for alcohol and drug addiction. The stay was not public knowledge. When he emerged, he did not retreat into quiet recovery. Instead, he went to the Casa de Nariño and sat down with Petro behind closed doors. Sarabia joined them before the meeting ended. The photograph of the three of them afterward—sitting on separate sofas, facing one another—became one of the defining images of this presidential term.

When Benedetti emerged, he spoke to waiting journalists with the ease of a man who had just secured his footing. He described his thirty-five days in treatment as "a very great effort," something he had done because alcoholism had "gained much ground" on him. It was a family decision, he said, rooted in his health. He applied the same language to his relationship with Sarabia: it too was in "rehabilitation." He wanted to work with her "as a team," he said. "Rebirth, renouncing certain things, recovering the past." When asked when he would start, he answered simply: "Tomorrow."

On what had been discussed in the meeting, Benedetti offered little. He spoke instead about the need for experience in congressional relations, about treating Congress as a pillar of the state, about the difference between legitimate political engagement and the kind of transactional dealings sometimes called "mermelada"—the practice of distributing public money to secure legislative support. He framed his return as a matter of governance, not personal ambition. Yet the optics were unmistakable: a man who had threatened the president's closest advisor, who had been cast out, who had checked into rehab, was now back in the innermost circle of power.

Benedetti carries legal baggage. Multiple corruption investigations remain open—inquiries into illicit enrichment, into misuse of public funds. None has resulted in conviction after eight years. The Foreign Ministry is also investigating allegations of domestic violence, an incident involving his wife in Madrid that Spanish police attended to. "There are no grounds for disciplinary proceedings," he said in his defense. He insisted he had never truly been distant from Petro, that they had maintained "continuous friendship" and "constant contact" throughout. On the question of his salary, he bristled slightly at what he called an indiscreet question. He would earn thirty percent less than he had as ambassador, he said—whether as a contractor or a civil servant remained to be decided in the next twenty-four hours. "So relax," he told the reporter, with a slight smile.

The political establishment watched in disbelief. No one had predicted this ending. Benedetti's return to Petro's side, his office steps from the president's, his role as a political advisor in a government that has struggled with congressional relations—it defied the logic of recent months. It suggested that in Colombian politics, especially in this administration, the distance between exile and restoration can be measured in days, that personal loyalty and political utility can override public scandal, and that a man willing to fight hard enough, and to seek help when necessary, might find his way back to power.