Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro addressed the nation on Tuesday to mobilize his supporters in opposition to a controversial decision by the National Electoral Council to investigate him.
In the televised speech, Petro called for a “generalized mobilization of the Colombian people in defense o democracy” hours after the CNE announced the investigation into alleged irregularities in the financing of Petro’s 2022 campaign.
The CNE investigation ignored the immunity from prosecution granted to sitting presidents that can only be revoked by Congress.
According to Petro, the charges leveled against him are “unfounded” and “the first step of a coup d’état against me.”
Today, the full immunity of the President of the Republic of Colombia, which is defended by the Constitution, has been broken. Today the first step of a coup d’état against me as constitutional president, democratically elected by popular vote by more than 11 million citizens, has been taken. If carried out, this act would represent the greatest affront to our democracy in the history of the country.
President Gustavo Petro
In a response, Colombia’s largest labor unions and pensioner federations issued a joint statement in which they declared a “state of alert over this perverse purpose of overthrowing the president.”
We will carry out all the necessary and pertinent meetings and consultations to bring together the broadest unity of the democratic and progressive forces of Colombia and to participate with them in a democratic and peaceful plan, to find a way to avoid and deactivate this murky purpose of the National Electoral Council, which aligns itself with the dark forces of the far right.
CUT, CGT, CPC and CDP
Petro and his supporters in Congress for months have claimed that the CNE investigation was part of a larger far-right conspiracy to oust Colombia’s first leftist president.