COLOMBIA: Petro denounces coup attempt
Thank you for reading LatinNews' chosen article from the Latin American Weekly Report - 10 October 2024
Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro claimed that a coup was afoot on 8 October. His latest claim followed a vote by the national electoral council (CNE) to launch a formal investigation on the suspicion that his electoral campaign in 2022 exceeded spending limits. Petro blasted the CNE, which he alleged had been “captured by the opposition that wants at all costs to put my integrity in doubt”. Against this backdrop, the interior minister, Juan Fernando Cristo, is endeavouring to push through congress a political reform that contains, among other things, a shake-up of the CNE, while advancing a national accord which, inter alia, seeks to reduce political polarisation.
The CNE voted by 7-2 to launch the investigation into President Petro, Ricardo Roa, his campaign chief and the current director of state oil company Ecopetrol, and other members of his team over campaign financing, which it said could have exceeded limits by some Col$5.36bn (US$1.2m) across the two rounds of the presidential elections. The CNE also said that it would investigate whether prohibited sources of financing had been used in Petro’s electoral campaign.
Petro denounced the investigation as “illegal and unconstitutional” and “the first step in a coup” to remove him from power. He said the CNE’s charge contravened presidential immunity from prosecution enshrined in the constitution. He denounced the CNE as being made up of “the same old political intriguers that have governed our country for decades”.
Political reform
Barely a week goes by without Petro making similar claims of coup designed to topple him but his current sense of grievance could owe in no small part to the fact that this marks the first time that the CNE has opened a formal investigation into a president for exceeding campaign spending limits, even though it is by no means the first time that there has been evidence of this or, indeed, more serious electoral irregularities. That said the timing of the government’s decision to present a political reform to congress proposing a restructuring of the CNE is eye-catching, with some opposition politicians suspecting sinister intent.
Cristo sought to allay the concerns of members of congress by arguing that the government’s proposed reform of the CNE would strengthen its independence. The reform would modify the process for electing the magistrates that sit on the CNE. It advocates basing the selection of CNE magistrates exclusively on merit through public competition organised by the constitutional court, the supreme court, and the council of state, rather than the current process of party political accords.
The political reform would also make electoral campaigns 100% financed by the state to ensure that they are “more fair and transparent”, Cristo said. Finally, the reform would introduce closed party lists in elections to congress and departmental assemblies from 2030, requiring gender parity in the choice of candidates.
Given the CNE’s investigation of Petro, and heightened tensions with congress, it is doubtful whether the political reform will prosper, not least because it bears close resemblance to a previous political reform which the president withdrew from congress in March last year after he said it had been denuded of some of its more progressive elements.
National accord
Cristo followed up his presentation of the political reform on 24 September with a national accord on 4 October, which he said should be the fruit of consensus between political parties, trade unions, and civil society.
The national accord would be based on five pillars. The first of these would be the eradication of violence in politics, with the exclusion of candidates linked to illegal armed groups. This would also include improving the political culture in Colombia with a reduction in political polarisation, as well as respect for differences, and the recovery of democratic values. The fifth point is very similar, calling for respectful dialogue and constructive consensus.
The national accord would also include national reconciliation and political co-existence, respect for electoral rules and regulations, including what Cristo called “a commitment in the face of so-many fantasies invented by the opposition” to preserve the bar on presidential re-election. It would also prioritise investment in the territorially focused development programmes (PDETs in the Spanish acronym) set up under the 2016 peace accord with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) in the 170 municipalities most affected by violence and poverty, covering a third of national territory and 5% of the national population.
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Rallying supporters
As on previous occasions President Petro urged supporters to mobilise to defend democracy in Colombia. He called for “the eyes of the world to pay attention to what is happening in Colombia to defend our democracy”, although if ‘the eyes of the world’ are on South America at all they are more likely to be focused on neighbouring Venezuela, where Petro’s opponents accuse him of a mealy-mouthed defence of democracy.
National accord
President Petro has talked about a grand national accord for over two years without producing anything tangible sign of what he means by it. The national accord presented by Interior Minister Cristo rectifies this omission but there is far less appetite among opposition parties for any national accord pushed by the Petro administration now than there would have been at the start of his presidential term.
Petro slams paramilitary peace deal signed under Uribe
President Petro appeared on stage alongside Salvatore Mancuso, the former second-in-command of the demobilised Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) paramilitary group, on 3 October. Mancuso, who was deported to Colombia in February after completing a 12-year prison sentence in the US, was designated as a ‘peace leader’ by Petro in July 2023.
At the event in Montería, the capital of the northern department of Córdoba, Mancuso, who is currently awaiting trial for thousands of conflict-related crimes, asked Colombians to forgive him for “so much pain, suffering, and tears, for the displacements, for the cruelty that you were subjected to through the orders of the men and women who were under my command”.
The event was Petro’s first face-to-face encounter with Mancuso. In his speech, Petro railed against the peace process which was undertaken with the AUC under former president álvaro Uribe (2002-2010). He said that the extradition of leading AUC members after their 2006 demobilisation was a “betrayal” by Uribe, who has been accused by Petro of ordering the extraditions to conceal links between his government and paramilitaries. As a senator at the time, Petro was the most outspoken critic of the parapolitics scandal.
Petro expressed support for a new dialogue process with former AUC members, which he said would “finish the peace process that álvaro Uribe started, this time without betrayal and without the fear of the truth that existed in those times”. Petro did not provide any further detail on the aims of this dialogue process, although his comments came amid speculation that Mancuso might testify against leading figures from the Uribe administration and the armed forces.
Petro’s wider ‘total peace’ initiative is ailing, following the collapse of a ceasefire with the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) guerrilla group in August and with most factions of the Estado Mayor Central (EMC) – the largest alliance of dissident units from the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc). The ELN offered an olive branch on 9 October, saying that it is “willing to meet with the government’s negotiating delegation to examine the crisis in the [peace] process”. At the tail end of September Interior Minister Juan Fernando Cristo said that the government was prepared to resume suspended peace negotiations with the ELN provided that it received an “unequivocal gesture of peace” from the guerrilla group.
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