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The left-wing candidate Gustavo Petro, favorite in all the polls, summoned two of his opponents to a meeting on Monday in the face of an alleged government plan to prevent the presidential elections on May 29. Electoral experts and members of the Government itself affirm that these rumors lack truth.
A week before the elections that could give him victory, Gustavo Petro surprised his followers. In a campaign closing ceremony in Barranquilla this Saturday, the candidate for the presidency of Colombia assured that the Government had a plan so that the elections do not take place on May 29.
The candidate for the leftist Historical Pact warned that this announcement would be official next Tuesday: “They plan to suspend the elections, they plan to suspend the bodies that direct the electoral regime in Colombia,” he declared from the main urban center of the Colombian Caribbean.
And in the face of what he called “a blow to the elections,” the candidate who leads all the polls called an “urgency meeting” with two of his rivals in the race for the presidency: “I am calling in this public square, in this street full of crowds, to all the political campaigns currently in competition, to the campaign of Sergio Fajardo (center), to the campaign of Rodolfo Hernández (populist), to the campaign of the Historical Pact, to be on alert. Monday”.
In reaction, the right-wing candidate Federico Gutiérrez assured that his rival was the only one who “has attacked democracy”: “Petro despises democracy and what he does is use democratic mechanisms to get himself elected and once elected assassinate from within the democracy, and we are not going to allow that,” denounced the former mayor of Medellín, during an act in Cali, on Saturday.
Persistent rumors of voter fraud
Petro’s accusations came the same day that the national registrar, Alexander Vega, gave a press conference in which he promised guarantees that fraud will not occur in the elections.
For his part, the Colombian Interior Minister, Daniel Palacios, denied the claims, while asking “candidates and teams not to generate misinformation.”
Affirmations that speak of the postponement or suspension of the elections are absolutely false. We ask candidates and teams not to generate misinformation.
Transparent elections start with the responsibility of candidates not to promote false information– Daniel Palacios (@DanielPalam) May 22, 2022
These rumors have been circulating in Colombia since the beginning of the week, by different politicians. The first to refer to this alleged plot was Senator Rodrigo Lara, who stated that the Executive or the Attorney General’s Office wanted to suspend the elections.
Daniel Palacios had also rejected these accusations, as had the director of the NGO Electoral Observation Mission. According to Alejandra Barrios, it is “really impossible” for the elections to be suspended because it is only stipulated for reasons of force majeure, such as a natural catastrophe. And it is that in Colombia elections have never been suspended or postponed, not even in the worst years of the war between the State and the extinct FARC guerrilla.
Impressive security measures for the “Petro-Márquez” formula
In other events of the Historic Pact campaign, the vice-presidential candidate Francia Márquez had to be escorted and taken from the stage where she gave her closing speech, in Bogotá, also that Saturday. The Afro-Colombian activist was targeted by a green laser and had to finish her speech while they covered her with protection shields.
Gustavo Petro’s security was also recently reinforced, given his team’s suspicion that they wanted to assassinate him. At the Barranquilla event, the 62-year-old candidate arrived in an armored vehicle behind a platform, from which he spoke, surrounded by bodyguards, more than 100 meters from where the public was.
All the polls agree in showing the leftist as the favorite to win the elections, although he would not get it in the first round. The unknown is with whom the second round will be played, with “Fico” Gutiérrez or with Rodolfo Hernández.
This Sunday is his big campaign closing, as it is the last day allowed by electoral law for candidates to hold events in public places.
With AFP, Reuters, EFE and local media
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