Former Senator and Patriotic March founder Piedad Cordoba asked President Juan Manuel Santos to allow Colombian voters to decide whether they want to continue peace negotiations regardless of which candidate wins May 25’s presidential election.
The former Senator Cordoba pressed Santos to include a, “eighth ballot” on May 25’s election forms allowing Colombian citizens to voice their support for the peace negotiations, reported El Pais newspaper.
President Santos is reportedly interested in taking the matter into consideration but has not decided definitively either way. The president viewed the “debate (as) open,” said Cordoba.
Cordoba is pressing a public referendum on the peace negotiations because she wants “a concrete decision from the Colombian people to say that the decision is not reversed.”
Following the allegations that two police officers were tortured and murdered by members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) some presidential candidates have advocated suspending the ongoing peace talks between the government and FARC in Cuba. Oscar Ivan Zulaga of the Democratic Center party and the Conservative Party’s Marta Lucia Ramirez both voiced their opposition of the the continuation of the peace negotiations following the police killings.
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Piedad Cordoba was formerly a Colombian Senator but was banned from political office for 18 years in 2010 for alleged ties with the FARC. Two years ago she founded a leftist political movement called the Patriotic March which has reportedly seen 48 members killed since its founding by right wing armed groups.