Colombia’s Defense Minister Gabriel Silva said Tuesday that the revelation of an alleged plot to assassinate presidential candidate Antanas Mockus is no cause for alarm, but that the army will increase security for all candidates.
“There is no need to create panic; there is no plot against the candidates, but that doesn’t mean that we won’t take any report [of a plot] seriously … I gave instructions to General Naranjo to provide additional security measures to all the candidates,” Silva said.
“We have preventative security measures and all the security requests that the candidates make will be attended to … All mobile security will be supervised and there will be a meeting with the heads of security to coordinate their [the candidates] movements to various regions,” Silva added.
The new measures follow the revelation Tuesday morning that an anonymous caller had tipped-off the authorities that “a group of unknown people” plan to assassinate Green Party presidential candidate Antanas Mockus, because of his recent surge in popularity and perceived weakness in terms of security policy.
Mockus’ surging popularity in the last few weeks has surprised analysts and political opponents, who so far have seemed unable to stop the “green wave.”
The former Bogota mayor has maintained the lead in most major voter opinion polls for several weeks.
Colombians will got to the polls on May 30 to elect their next president.