Petro’s “Soft Coup D’état” Claims Rejected by Inter-American Court of Human Rights

Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s denounce of an alleged “soft coup d’état” against him and his government, which the president appealed to following the National Electoral Council’s (CNE) announcement to investigate him for violating financial limits in his presidential campaign, has been dismissed by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR).

Last October President Petro and his legal team submitted  a request for protective measures against an investigation opened by the CNE and detailed in a press release. The investigation is intended to inquire into the alleged irregular financing of his campaign for the Presidency, based on the omission of several contributions or expenses of the campaign in the first round of elections: one of Fecode (the teachers’ union) for $115,200 USD; another one of the Unión Sindical Obrera, USO (Worker’s Unión), for $87,300 USD; a loan requested by the ‘Polo Democrático Alternativo‘ party for $115,200 USD; the payments to electoral witnesses that totaled $212,200 USD; and payments to the ‘Colombia Humana‘ party for $115,200 USD. Furthermore, according to the CNE associations such as Fecode and the USO are not allowed to make financial contributions to any political campaign.

For the second round, the CNE also found several irregularities, including the omission of the payment to the venue in Bogotá where the victory of the presidency was celebrated, as well as and the absence of payment reports to poll watchers. In total, the irregularities of Petro’s campaign in both presidential rounds total just over $1,2 million USD (as of the date of publication) according to the CNE investigation.

The president’s lawyers argued before the court that this investigation implicitly limits the jurisdiction of the Accusations Commission of the House of Representatives (lower house of the Congress), as the only body empowered to criminally investigate a president. They argued there was a “serious risk” of violating the political rights of the president and his voters.

It is not the first time Petro has tried this strategy, since he got elected as president thanks to a ruling by the IACHR in July 2020 that overturned a disproportionate decision by the Attorney General’s Office – led by Alejandro Ordoñez – that disqualified him from holding public office for 15 years. At that time, the Court considered that his political rights and other legal principles were violated and consequently Petro was able to be a presidential candidate.

This time, according to the international court, Colombia’s highest electoral authority does not have the power to disqualify or restrict the political rights of the head of state, or of any official who has been elected by popular vote. This means it does not represent a real threat to the continuity of Petro’s government.

Hoewever, in its ruling, the court made it clear that the electoral authority’s investigation does not violate the political guarantees of the head of state. “Declare inadmissible the request for adoption of provisional measures presented by the representatives of the victim in the case,” says the document signed by Judge Nancy Hernández López, president of the IACHR.

For the IACHR, the facts of Petro’s previous request cannot be compared with the current one: “the Court considers that the request is not related to the object of the case or to the implementation of any of the guarantees of non-repetition of normative adequacy ordered in the Judgment, which makes it inadmissible.”

But the international magistrates specified that “the information provided in this request for provisional measures does not show that the administrative body in question (the CNE) has the power to disqualify or restrict the political rights of a popularly elected official.”

As Carlos Prieto, lawyer and professor at the Universidad Javeriana, confirmed to EL COLOMBIANO, the outcome did not come as a surprise: “The president intends to repeat the events that marked his term as Mayor of Bogotá, and that served for the IACHR to dictate the sentence of which he feels so proud. For this reason, he goes before the international organization in the condition in which he likes to present himself, as a ‘victim’, requesting protection against the actions of the judicial and administrative authorities.”

Headline photo: President Gustavo Petro (Photo: Joel González, Presidencia de la República)