Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro mobilized his base over fears that far-right opponents of his government seek to oust him from power.
At events that were organized for community journalists and political activists, Petro called on his supporters to start a revolution in the event of a silent coup.
The president stepped up his public performances in the week ahead of a key meeting of the National Electoral Council (CNE) in which magistrates decide whether or not to charge Petro and his 2022 campaign team over alleged spending violations.
The president has deemed this investigation as fraudulent, in violation of his presidential immunity and an attempted silent coup by his opponents on the far-right.
Critics of the president have called him paranoid, but Petro stressed that similarly dubious investigations by administrative authorities have already removed three of the government coalition’s elected lawmakers from Congress.
All of you, coming from all the regions, we cannot go to sleep, because they want to put us to sleep. If they unleash the coup d’état, which is not with soldiers, it is not with generals as with Pinochet, but with [men in] ties that they are going to unleash it, with illegitimate decisions, the coup d’état will be answered by the people with a revolution.
President Gustavo Petro
At an event organized for political activists, the president said that “I have ordered the Army of Colombia and the National Police, the Air Force and the Navy not to raise a single weapon against the people who demand democracy.”
Petro said that the eventual revolution in his support “will be peaceful, but overwhelming: the neckties and the mafia on one side and the entire Colombian people on the other.”
It will not be a war, no. It will be a massive popular celebration, and that is why we need you, as the leadership of the popular movement in Colombia, young people, women, workers, indigenous, ethnic, LGBTI, everything.
President Gustavo Petro
At an event for community journalists that was held last week, Petro said that the attempted coup would start on Monday, when the CNE is scheduled to make a decision on whether to formally charge the president and his election team.