Petro says there are plans to overthrow him within the next three months — MercoPress

Colombia: Petro says there are plans to overthrow him within the next three months

Petro said the plot against him was financed by the mafia (Photo AFP)

Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Thursday that an “imminent” coup against him was in the works. He warned that his removal would take place within the next three months and said that large sums of money were involved in his planned ouster.

The country’s first leftist head of state made the comments during an appearance in the Colombian city of Armenia, the capital of the department of Quindío.

“A coup d’état is not the generals of the police and the army, who are looking for a way to take over the palace and depose the president, no gentlemen, the oligarchs of the country are not such brutes. It is a coup d’état Colombian-style,” Petro argued, recalling the recent attempted military uprising against Bolivian President Luis Arce Catacora and the ousting of Pedro Castillo in Peru.

Petro insisted that there was a plan to attempt his life or remove him from office within the next three months. “They wanted to see if Salvador Allende’s plan to block the roads to overthrow the president would be repeated, and that is what they want: either the president dies or they overthrow him, the order has been given.”

The former guerrilla fighter added that the plot against him was “financed by the mafia.” He also explained that if he were to be removed from office, the next president of Colombia would be the president of the Senate, Efraín Cepeda of the Conservative Party, and stressed that if he did not have the support of the people, he would already have been overthrown. Many sectors in Colombia have already said that “we no longer want Petro in the Palacio de Nariño,” the incumbent president also noted.

In this scenario, former President César Gaviria (1990-1994) said that Petro’s statements were “unfortunate” and expressed his solidarity with Cepeda. “The Liberal Party is in solidarity with” Cepeda. “The Liberal Party works for the respect of values ​​and the strengthening of our democratic institutions that are solid and guarantors enough to maintain democracy and the well-being of Colombians,” added Gaviria, who also served as Secretary General of the Organization of American States between 1994 and 2004.