With grave concerns of right-wing schemes plotting his missteps before he even makes them, Colombian President Gustavo Petro has intensified his calls in recent days for his supporters to take to the streets. This is in defense of the government they voted for in the summer of 2022 and to stand against the conspiracies being woven against it, judicially and through the media, to derail it before the end of its legal term in 2026.
The President has openly described it as a soft coup, especially with the impending appointment of a new Attorney General this week, hindering the election of one of the names he proposed and maintaining the right-wing’s influence in their positions.
Leftist President
Despite President Petro’s opponents agreeing to downplay the phrase “soft coup” and accuse the man of exaggeration, the facts on the ground give him legitimacy to use the term. This relates to details of his specific framework, his government, his family, and even the broader political landscape in Colombia.
President Petro is the first leftist president to assume office in August 2022 after an unparalleled 200-year dominance of the right. The late leader Chávez once referred to Colombia as “Latin America’s Israel” due to its status as the region’s strongest ally of Israel and the United States. This explains the enormity of the media machine in Colombia and the strength of its right-wing discourse in shaping public opinion to align with what Washington desires.
It is ironic that right-wing figures dismissed President Petro’s warning of a soft coup seeking to undermine him, claiming that unlike other countries in the region, Colombia has never experienced a coup since the start of its democratic experiment. This provoked his supporters to counter by highlighting that Colombia did not witness a coup under right-wing rule because the US administration did not require one!
Ferocious Media Campaigns
On the other hand, President Petro’s mention of the soft coup can gain credibility when one looks at his recent past. During his tenure as Mayor of Bogotá from 2012 to 2015, he faced a prosecutor’s decision to dismiss him from office due to a disagreement over waste management. A verdict was issued stripping him of his political rights for 15 years. However, he sought international judicial help and reclaimed his position, revealing that his dismissal was arbitrary, aiming to exclude him from any electoral race. He went on to win the country’s presidency in 2022, continuing to haunt his popularity over his opponents.
Furthermore, in the eighteen months of his term, President Petro has been under intense media campaigns aiming to tarnish his image, performance, as well as that of his allies and family members.
The most draining confrontation lies in the battle against the work of the prosecutor and the attorney general, who act as a barrier against President Petro’s dream of appointing non-right-wing figures to lead these institutions.
The media and legal campaigns have accused President Petro of receiving funds from drug cartels for his presidential campaign before shifting the focus to his son’s alleged illicit gains and attempting to link the charge to his father. However, President Petro has called on the judiciary to hold his son accountable with integrity and has not intervened even after judgments were made against him.
Suspicious Financial Sources
The accusations then extended to the president’s wife for extravagance and misuse of public funds. This campaign was accompanied by targeted attacks on his wife and daughters in public places, amplified in the media, apparently as messages from the people disapproving of the ruling family.
Mid last year, the campaigns transformed into a public opinion issue revolving around leaks from the president’s chief of staff, Laura Sarabia, and former Colombian ambassador to Venezuela, Armando Benidetti. The leaks pertained to disputes over “suspiciously sourced” financial amounts, quickly seized upon by the prosecutor who, as is routine, dragged President Petro’s name into the matter. However, President Petro once again proved his detachment from the personal feud between Sarabia and Benidetti.
By the end of last year, opposition in Parliament managed to hold Foreign Minister Albaro Leyba, who is closely linked to President Petro, accountable and force him to suspend his duties for three months as a sanction over his handling of passport issuance.
The Colombian Foreign Ministry has been awarding a multimillion-dollar tender to the specialized company “Thomas Gragg” for passport preparation and printing since 2007. However, the sanctioned minister chose to reject awarding the tender to the same company due to its solo candidacy without competition, citing it as not meeting the tender’s conditions. Furthermore, President Petro explicitly stated, “Manipulating tender envelopes to predetermine the winner is corruption in itself,” indicating an internal network within the ministry involved in such activities.
Demonization and Drainage
What raises questions is that while the Foreign Minister is being punished, the same company won the tender just last week! No judicial authority, including the prosecutor, condemned this decision!
The latest “conspiracy” perceived by President Petro as a real embodiment of the soft coup against him involves demonizing the three nominations proposed with the Supreme Court’s approval for the successor of the outgoing right-wing Attorney General Francisco Barbosa.
In contrast, signs of delaying the appointments are evident to solely appoint Martha Mansera, deputy Attorney General to Barbosa, temporarily until Petro’s presidential term ends. This scenario is legally acceptable due to the lack of consensus on the President’s candidates!
President Petro deems this as a politically contrived obstruction by the right to monopolize the judiciary’s power, intending to use it to wage a legal war against him in what is known as “lawfare.” This aims to incapacitate him either before his term ends or post-issuance of criminal judgments to prevent his future return to political life, similar to what happened with Brazil’s former President Lula da Silva and Ecuador’s former President Rafael Correa, along with many other left-leaning socialists in the region.
While Colombian right-wing figures downplay the President’s accusations against the judiciary of working to overthrow him sooner or later and prevent his return to the scene, relying on the media’s exceptional capabilities to discredit and demonize him in the eyes of Colombians, President Petro refuses to become Colombia’s Pedro Castaño.
This refers to the former President of Peru, whom the judicial, legislative, and media arsenal united against, dismissing him two years ago and throwing him into prison on charges of attempting to overthrow the parliament that was never on his side.
The opinions expressed in this article are of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
