Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro said Sunday that “enemies” of his leftist government are planning a coup d’état.
In a post on social media platform X, Petro said that it would “depend on the people who elected me whether the oligarchic design becomes a reality or we defeat them again.”
This will not be a parliamentary vote of our enemies to remove us. This will be a popular struggle.
President Gustavo Petro
The president published the message shortly after news website Cambio published evidence that would prove that Petro’s 2022 campaign had breached spending regulations.
The alleged spending violation has been investigated by the National Electoral Council (CNE), an electoral tribunal that is made up of appointees of Colombia’s political parties.
Until August, only Congress had the authority to investigate the president and potentially remove him from office.
This changed on August 6 when the consultations chamber of the State Council ruled that the CNE was allowed to both investigate Petro and “impose the corresponding administrative sanctions.”
Former CNE magistrate Armando Novoa, an associate of Petro, told newspaper El Espectador that this ruling allows the CNE to sanction the president “without observing due process and the right of defense.”
This decision is problematic and opens a Pandora’s Box for the stability of the figure of the president as it gives a political body, controlled by the parties and the Congress, the ability to impose an administrative sanction on the president, without observing due process and the right of defense.
Former CNE magistrate Armando Novoa
Novoa stressed that the CNE magistrates “have no credibility or institutional legitimacy due to the party-political origin of this body.”
The investigation has been promoted by Petro’s opponents on the far-right and has been given to magistrates whose parties oppose Petro and his progressive policies.
The CNE did not immediately confirm the alleged evidence that would allow them to impose sanctions on the president and trigger on of the biggest crises in Colombia’s political history.