Vicky Dávila and 'Semana', the staging ground for a presidential candidacy
Part 2 of a series on (now former) Semana director Vicky Dávila. Today: How Semana became the mouthpiece of the right-wing opposition and the staging ground for Vicky Dávila's 2026 candidacy.
This is part two of a series about Vicky Dávila, the journalist-turned-early right-wing presidential favourite. You can read part one here. Since part one was posted, Vicky Dávila resigned as director of Semana on November 16, effectively the first step in an explicit presidential candidacy.
Part two discusses how Semana under Vicky Dávila became the mouthpiece of the right-wing opposition to Petro, and how that became the staging ground into Vicky Dávila’s own presidential ambitions.
The mouthpiece of the opposition
Petro barely had a honeymoon with Semana. In 2019, the magazine had been roundly mocked for its cover page headline Año de aprendizaje (year of learning) on the occasion of Duque’s first year in office. Petro didn’t get an año de aprendizaje from Semana.
Under Vicky Dávila’s direction, Semana quickly began shaping a catastrophist narrative of a country in crisis, seizing on (and spinning) every event, scandal or controversy, real or imagined, to support their argument. Petro has been portrayed, at best, as an incompetent madman and, at worst, as a wannabe tyrant hellbent on destroying democracy and institutional stability.
Petro’s excessive use of Twitter, bizarre rambling screeds on social media and irascibility has helped create a feeding frenzy, providing a constant source of viral controversies for the media, whose coverage often provokes the president to angrily snap back. Semana has become a sounding board of opinions from politicians, influencers and entertainment figures—Petro himself but also his petrista attack dogs, and loudmouth opposition figures like María Fernanda Cabal and Miguel Polo Polo.
In September 2022, months before the government’s contentious healthcare reform was even unveiled, Semana’s alarmist cover, with the title Pánico en la salud (panic in healthcare), said that then-health minister Carolina Corcho had become a “terror” for the sector and that her reform would put lives at risk. In March 2023, another cover page affirmed that Colombia was going badly, presenting an “alarming” account of the state of the country with “economic dark clouds, the deterioration of public order, the rise of drug trafficking, the ineffectiveness of the military and uncertainty over the government’s reforms.” A frontpage editorial in July 2023 branded defence minister Iván Velásquez as a failure responsible for the increase in violence and drug trafficking, and irresponsibly claimed, without evidence, that the fall 2023 local elections would be ‘at risk’. In October 2023, after Petro failed to condemn Hamas’ attacks on Israel on October 7, Semana’s cover, with the headline El títere (the puppet), accused Petro of being a puppet of Iran and Russia and being anti-Semitic.
Until he left office in February 2024, then-attorney general Francisco Barbosa, himself a very conceited and ambitious man desperate for panegyrical media attention, was a favourite of Semana—to the point that several other journalists and media critics believe that his Fiscalía was the ‘confidential’ source for a lot of the magazine’s scoops. He was often featured on the frontpage, gave several interviews to Vicky Dávila, was proclaimed, in January 2023, as a ‘hand brake’ on Petro and in a May 2023 interview called Petro a dictator. El Espectador columnist Cecilia Orozco described Semana as the Barbosa Fiscalía’s armed media wing and Barbosa’s political operator. Vicky Dávila fired back at Orozco, calling her a “sad woman with a twisted soul” and tried to link her to the Odebrecht scandal.
Semana has loved to portray Petro as an autocrat or wannabe dictator, constantly warning—often without much evidence—of the president’s alleged desire to destroy democracy and institutions, seek reelection in 2026, shut down Congress and seize control of the judiciary. Most recently, Semana ‘warned’ that Petro would not open the 2024-25 sessions of Congress on July 20 and close Congress to install his constituent assembly by decree (none of that happened). Petro’s diatribes against other branches of government, delusional ideas like the constituent assembly and other angry rants on Twitter have, of course, fed into this story and seem to support his opponents’ darkest fears about him. In reality, however, despite all this, Petro has continued to respect institutions and played by the rules in a democracy (begrudgingly at times).
Semana’s influence and Vicky’s star power increased in 2023 as the magazine revealed some of the biggest scandals in the administration: the scandals around Nicolás Petro’s role in the illegal financing of the 2022 campaign and Laura Sarabia’s ‘nannygate’ polygraph and wiretap (chuzadas) scandal.
In the first scandal, Semana’s interview with Nicolás Petro’s ex first foretold the future scandal, later followed by exclusive interview with Nicolás Petro himself (which wasn’t particularly insightful despite Vicky’s sensationalism). Semana published the illegally leaked video of his interrogation by prosecutors during which he confessed that his father was aware of the illegal financing of the campaign (Petro’s deal with prosecutors later broke down, he claimed that he was pressured to testify against his father and the prosecutor in charge of his case now faces a disciplinary investigation for revealing confidential information).
In the second case, Semana broke the scandal, which started with an exclusive interview with Sarabia’s former nanny, in which she reported how she was forced to undergo a polygraph test after being accused of stealing money from Sarabia’s house. The magazine later published the ‘explosive’ leaked audio recordings from the temperamentally unstable and foul-mouthed Armando Benedetti that talk about all the ‘shit’ Benedetti knows about illegal financing and illegal money in the 2022 campaign.
More recently, in the ongoing UNGRD scandal, Vicky Dávila’s interviews with the key witnesses, Sneyder Pinilla and Olmedo López, exposed the bribes to congressmen, including Andrés Calle and Iván Name, and how the orders allegedly came from top ministers and government officials. Semana and other media outlets leaked the details of testimonies and evidence incriminating ministers, congressmen and senior officials, notably finance minister Ricardo Bonilla.
Semana’s regular scoops and ‘exclusive’ interviews have often put it at the centre of attention, dominating public debate and often setting the conversation. However, at times, the accuracy of Semana’s reporting has been called into question. In June 2023, during the Sarabia nannygate scandal, Semana published allegations made by a single ‘confidential source’ who claimed that the money stolen from Sarabia’s house actually belonged to Petro and amounted to 3,000 million pesos (much higher than the official reported number and other unconfirmed claims). Semana said that the source was identified but kept confidential for their protection. They did not corroborate or confirm their source’s testimony. After Petro sent a thinly-veiled implicit warning to the Gilinski family, reminding them that he had stayed neutral in their fight with the GEA, Vicky Dávila and Semana quietly buried that story and never followed up on it. In January 2024, Petro signed the decree giving legal backing to the ‘peace’ deal transaction between the GEA and Gilinski.
Semana has also reported inaccurately on the government’s policies. In August, after Petro’s controversial idea (later dropped) of forced investments by private banks, Semana suggested that Petro could confiscate individuals’ savings—which wasn’t true.
An analysis of media coverage of Petro in April-May 2024, published on a blog in El Espectador, showed that Semana had, by far, the most headlines about Petro (873) compared to the other five media outlets analyzed, at a rate of about 30 headlines a day mentioning Petro. The vast majority—71%—were negative (less than 10% were positive), and a plurality of them (48.5%) were opinion headlines rather than informative.
Dávila, at times through Semana itself, has regularly attacked other journalists who have dared criticize her. She’s regularly clashed with her former colleague Daniel Coronell (a Semana article in 2022 implied, without evidence, he was an ‘instrument of a cornered GEA’).
Observers and critics have raised questions to what extent Gabriel Gilinski is in agreement with the direction that Semana has taken under Vicky Dávila during the Petro presidency. In 2023, Duzán, one of Vicky’s biggest professional rivals, opined that their digital monster had spun out of control and wondered how long he’d keep riding her ‘kamikaze’ plane. Like a good businessman, Gabriel Gilinski has remained coy. In a rare interview on Duzán’s podcast in April, he defended Vicky’s work and trusted her judgement but said that he doesn’t interfere with the editorial stance. Gilinski expressed respect and admiration for Petro and, in contrast with the gloomy picture painted daily by Semana, he’s quite optimistic about the state and direction of the country.
From journalist to presidential candidate
The leap from vocal opposition journalist to opposition presidential candidate isn’t very big. In 2024, speculation about Vicky Dávila’s presidential ambitions grew quickly.
With the right-wing opposition struggling to find a leader, Vicky Dávila became the darling of the right, with her ‘uncompromising’ and hard-hitting attacks on the government. An obsessional and quasi-irrational hatred of Petro has become a defining feature of the Colombian right since 2022, and Vicky Dávila expresses that better than anyone.
By being terminally online and unable not to engage in Twitter spats, Petro himself contributed to boosting her influence and starpower. As president, Petro has regularly criticized and attacked journalists, but Vicky Dávila has been his main target. At one point, he vowed that he’d no longer refer to her opinions, but he was unable to keep that promise. He’s branded her a liar and ignorant, said that she’s financed by an economic group, accused her of permanently slandering him and despectively referred to her as ‘that woman’ or ‘the woman from the unmentionable magazine’. He’s claimed that Semana is leading a ‘cognitive war’ against the government. He had her in mind when he talked about ‘Mossad journalism’ and, most recently, when he misogynistically attacked women journalists as ‘puppets of the mafia’ (a comment that got substantial blowback including from more sympathetic media).
Being the target of the president’s ire has made her even more popular in right-wing circles. She’s even been noticed by Petro’s opponents in the US Republican Party: in April 2024, she received an award from GOP representatives María Elvira Salazar and Carlos A. Giménez for remaining dedicated to “quality investigative journalism” while Petro attacks the press.
With 3.9 million followers on X/Twitter, Dávila is a leading influencer on social media. She uses her platform not only to share articles published in Semana, but also, increasingly, to express her political opinions and criticize Petro. Tit for tat, she’s replied to Petro’s attacks, calling him, among other things, a national disgrace and liar who wants to stay in power, end democracy and turn Colombia into Venezuela. Dávila has often aluded to Petro’s past in the M-19 guerrilla, almost implying that Petro is a terrorist. After Petro implied that she follows Goebbels’ communicational tactic of lying, she riposted that Petro’s communication strategy is similar to Hitler and Goebbels. She claims that she has a duty to alert Colombians to Petro’s “dangerous plans” (i.e. to stay in power and abolish democracy and freedom), and contends that Petro’s attacks against her for her work as a journalist put her life in danger—she’s often alleged that Petro has ‘threatened’ her for stating her opinions.
In 2024, Vicky Dávila’s language shifted from ‘conservative opinion commentator’ to potential presidential candidate—without ever explicitly declaring herself as such.
Presidential speculation
Speculation about Dávila’s political ambitions began with a Twitter fight with Claudia López, the former mayor of Bogotá (2020-2023) and one of the other early frontrunners for the presidency in 2026, in February. Following a terse brawl, with Dávila blaming López for the increase in criminality in Bogotá, Claudia López addressed her as ‘candidate Vicky’, pointedly asking when she’d launch her campaign or if she was denying that she was a candidate. She told her to “run your campaign head-on, without weekly front pages and without a mask” and added that she would be going after her “first public job with Uribe’s votes and Gilinski’s money.’’ Vicky Dávila responded with a mad barrage of tweets, in which she never denied the ‘accusation’ made by the former mayor. She called Claudia López a ‘failed petrista professional politician’, took great pleasure in sharing polls (including Twitter polls) showing her beating López in 2026 and claimed that López was desperate and upset.
In a column in Cambio, María Jimena Duzán wrote that the altercation with Claudia López had brought to light an open secret: Vicky’s presidential ambitions. According to Duzán, a secret, unpublished poll that circulated the corridors of power in late 2023 showed Dávila well positioned to compete against Claudia López in a runoff, beating out a crowded field of candidates. Duzán wrote that Dávila had become the leader of the opposition to Petro, and that no right-wing politician measured up to her in terms of recognition. Dávila used a “megaphone called Semana” as a pulpit to speak to the country, going from journalism to activism with ease. Duzán said that, with Dávila, “facts are supporting actors and emotions are protagonists” and that her headlines “don’t inform but rather appeal to hatred, frustration, fear or rage.”
Vicky Dávila lashed out angrily at anyone, particularly ‘fellow’ journalists, who dare mention her putative presidential ambitions. After Duzán’s column, Dávila called her a “far-left activist who has camouflaged herself in journalism for years.” It’s a somewhat ironic comment, given that Dávila herself continued to camouflage herself behind journalism while increasingly behaving as a presidential candidate. She insisted that she’s a journalist, not a politician, which allowed her to accuse others of wanting to silence her by declaring her a presidential candidate or to cry out that freedom of the press is under threat whenever evil Petro attacks her. She’s used Semana unscrupulously to further whatever personal ambitions she may have, and to attack potential opponents. For example, in September 2023, Semana, based solely on a preliminary investigation by the Fiscalía, alleged possible bribes to Claudia López and her wife, senator Angélica Lozano, in the Bogotá metro. The allegations were not corroborated by other sources and had several holes in it.
Journalist, candidate or both
There’s been a lot of ink spilled about Vicky Dávila’s potential presidential candidacy. Her colleagues and media critics have debated the ethics of a journalist and director of a media outlet moonlighting as a presidential candidate. Many, as discussed above, have called on her to address the ambiguity of her position and decide if she’s a candidate or if she’s a journalist.
In August, the online political portal La Silla Vacía took the editorial decision to consider her as a candidate. Again, Dávila tweeted back furiously, disparaging La Silla as a media and claiming (with little to no evidence) that its editor was a ‘quota’ of Iván Duque.
Vicky’s position between journalism and politics is not unprecedented. In Colombia, there’s a long history of overtly partisan newspapers and newspapers owned by politicians or political dynasties. El Tiempo, the most influential newspaper in 20th century Colombia, was owned by the Santos family from 1913 until 2007, and several of its members jumped between journalism (in the family business) and politics—including Juan Manuel Santos, but most prominently his great uncle, Eduardo Santos (owner of the newspaper over 6 decades and president from 1938 to 1942). In the heyday of its influence, El Tiempo was said to make or break presidents, and Hernando Santos once said that he was a ‘maker of presidents’ (except for Belisario Betancur). The sons and daughters of politicians—the delfines—controlled magazines or TV newscasts: Semana was owned by Alfonso López Michelsen’s son, the Criptón newscast was owned by Julio César Turbay’s daughter Diana Turbay (kidnapped by Pablo Escobar and killed in a botched rescue attempt in 1991), the Pastrana family owned La Prensa and the TV Hoy newscast (future president Andrés Pastrana’s main claim to fame outside of his last name was being newscaster for his family’s newscast).
Even today, Vicky Dávila’s political activist style of journalism isn’t unique. Under Petro, the public broadcaster, RTVC (and RTVC Noticias, the news program launched in 2021), has become the propaganda arm of the government. Its boss, the rather disreputable Hollman Morris, is a Petro loyalist who has oscillated between politics and journalism for years.
Stay tuned for part three in the coming days, all about Vicky Dávila’s presidential ambitions in 2026.