President Petro Denounces Peru-Style Lawfare Against Him

Colombian President Gustavo Petro reported that there are attempts to prevent him from participating in the shortlist to elect the new attorney general to take office in February 2024. This is another step in advancing a coup d’état in the making similar to the one against Peruvian President Pedro Castillo.

Petro’s denunciation comes in response to a tweet from former prosecutor Vivian Morales, who suggested that the Colombian president should “declare himself barred from being part of the shortlist that should elect the new prosecutor.”

To appoint the attorney general of Colombia, the president must define the shortlist of candidates in the second half of the year. Then, he will have to send it to the Supreme Court, which will choose who will assume the position in February 2024.

President Petro: Coups Must Be Resisted and Defeated

President Petro responded via social media, saying, “This is what they are looking for. To limit my duty to present a list [of candidates] against impunity. This is where it all begins. Not only do they seek to prevent the government of change from presenting what they know will be a shortlist against impunity, but they seek the path that Pedro Castillo suffered, as Nestor Humberto Martinez well expressed,” referring to the parliamentary coup that ousted the Peruvian president last year.

Pero no solo buscan impedir que el gobierno del cambio presente la terna fiscal, que saben será una terna contra la impunidad, sino que buscan el camino que sufrió Pedro Castillo, como bien lo expresó Nestor Humberto Martinez.
Del pueblo dependerá
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) June 5, 2023

The maneuver against Gustavo Petro aims to remove him using lawfare, which is the use of fabricated legal processes to remove someone from public office. Similar lawfare mechanisms were used against President Pedro Castillo in Peru, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, and Cristina Kirchner in Argentina, all progressive governments disliked by the White House.

On social media, President Petro also referred to the leaked audios of the now-former Colombian ambassador to Venezuela, Armando Benedetti.

Petro noted that he extracted two things from what the former official said: first, that his former chief of staff, Laura Sarabia, received enormous pressure that he was unaware of and second, that Benedetti was mistaken in thinking that Sarabia was the one who formed the cabinet. Petro reiterated that there were no irregularities with the financing through donations during his campaign.

De los audios y entrevistas de Armando Benedetti extraigo dos conclusiones;
1.Laura ha recibido una presión enorme que desconocía. Debe haber sufrido y sufre mucho.
2 Se equivoca Benedetti al pensar que Laura configuraba el gabinete, siempre lo hice y lo hago yo
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) June 5, 2023

The Colombian president recalled that in two interviews, Benedetti stated that he helped get donations for the campaign and there were no irregularities.

“It is true, every time someone asked to donate or get donors, they were processed via the proper channels, where the screenings were always done according to the law,” he stated.

Petro added that his campaign management rejected many donations and accepted others according to the legal criteria. He highlighted that most of the financing was done with commercial bank loans.

(RedRadioVE) by Ana Perdigón

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/JRE/SF