Colombia’s Workers’ Confederation (CUT) has chosen a new president after ousting the previous leader, Colombian media reported Tuesday.
The previous president Tarcisio Mora, who had been in office for four years, called his removal an “illegal coup d’etat,” claiming on Radio Caracol his colleagues had not liked his conciliatory attitude towards the government and the business community.
During a meeting of the executive committee of the CUT Thursday, 20 out of 21 members voted to remove from him from office and replace him with trade union leader Luis Alejandro Pedraza, with one abstention.
Mora said he was not invited to the meeting, leading him to label it “an attack on democracy.”
The CUT has not commented on why it removed Mora from office, or his claim he was excluded from the meeting.
New leader Pedraza said he was prepared for his new task and was waiting for authorization by the executive committee on Thursday.
He said, “There was simply an internal dynamic to realign the programs of the CUT towards the future and 20 of the 21 members of the executive committee came to an agreement and proposed that I assume the role. It is a responsibility that I cannot shirk and will be formalized in the coming days.”
Pedraza cofounded the CUT in 1986 and studied law and psychology of conflict resolution.
The CUT is Colombia’s largest labor federation and represents 1,800 delegates from 600 trade unions across Colombia.