Colombia’s government is intimidating critics amid fears that its failure to guarantee free and fair elections could revive social unrest on Sunday.
President Ivan Duque said Tuesday that “the security forces will make the verdict of the Colombian people in the polls be respected.”
Duque responded to warnings by the National Police director Jorge Luis Vargas about “to commit acts of violence and ignore the electoral results” through “the social media accounts of anonymous profiles, and the dark web and the deep web.”
Police in the cities of Cali and Bucaramanga subsequently arrested 18 alleged members of so-called Primera Linea groups that played a major role in anti-government protests last year, Defense Minister Diego Molano said Wednesday.
None of the detainees were arrested on charges related to the government’s conspiracy theory, but were on outstanding arrest warrants.
The arrests were apparently part of an attempt to intimidate government critics and similar to illegal raids carried out before the anti-government protests in 2019 and 2021.
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Why the intimidation?
Gustavo Petro (Image: Wikipedia)
The government appears to be concerned that Sunday’s elections may trigger social unrest, and for multiple good reasons.
Neither opposition candidate Gustavo Petro and outside candidate Rodolfo Hernandez were able to obtain the support of a convincing majority in opinion polls after extremely tense campaigning.
Electoral authorities lost all credibility after National Registrar Alexander Vega failed to count almost 1.5 million votes in the congressional elections in March, according to the independent Electoral Observation Mission.
Duque illegally suspended anti-election fraud legislation in November and has blatantly ignored electoral law that prohibits State interference in the elections.
Interior Minister Daniel Palacios, the police chief and government-loyal media have been promoting conspiracy theories about alleged Petro supporters threatening with violence if the opposition candidate loses.
Last but not least, all aforementioned officials are implicated in major corruption scandals and could land them in prison if the opposition takes power.
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The conspiracy theory
Vargas and government-loyal media have suggested that the Primera Linea is planning to start a revolution if Petro loses the elections.
This conspiracy theory was coined after a self-proclaimed “Primera Linea” page on Facebook called to either “celebrate” or “organize a f***king revolution on a national level” on Sunday.
Petro’s daughter Sofia told Spanish newspaper that Colombia could see a new “popular uprising” if her father loses.
Weekly Semana, which has been trying to criminalize the opposition for years, published on June 6 that the Primera Linea “threatened” to start a ‘revolution if the opposition candidate loses.
The weekly claimed that Petro’s daughter “threatened” with a popular uprising the next day.
The claims made by Semana and other government-loyal media allowed the police chief to claim there had been “expressions” about “calls to commit violence and reject the election results.”
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Election observers looking over government’s shoulders
Electoral magistrates recount votes that were cast in the congressional elections (Image: Adriaan Alsema)
A large number of international election observers have watching the elections closely to make sure that the elections organized by the increasingly authoritarian Duque regime are free and fair.
Notwithstanding, the elections have so far been the most violent of the past decade, according to the Electoral Observation Mission.
The MOE has warned that particularly the government’s interference in the elections and the registrar’s apparent ineptitude threaten “electoral peace” after Sunday.