- wording
- BBC News World
11 mayo 2022
image source, Medellin’s town hall
The Colombian Attorney General’s Office suspended the mayor of Medellín, Daniel Quintero, from his post on Tuesday for a video in which he indirectly but clearly expresses his support for the candidacy of leftist Gustavo Petro in the upcoming presidential elections.
The Colombian attorney general, Margarita Cabello, considered that Quintero incurred in “the alleged and repeated intervention in political activities and controversies“.
“The Attorney General’s Office has the constitutional and legal competence to investigate, provisionally suspend and sanction, even with dismissal and disability, all public servants in the country, including those elected by popular vote,” he argued.
Colombian law prevents public officials from participating in electoral politics.
The prosecutor also announced the opening of an investigation and provisional suspension of three other public officials: Andrés Fabián Hurtado, mayor of Ibagué; Gustavo Adolfo Herrera, councilor of Calarcá (Quindio); and Grenfell Lozano Guerrero, representative of Nátaga (Huila).
The video
In the video in question, published by Quintero himself on Twitter, the mayor activates the gear lever of a truck and says “change in first”.
“The change in first” is one of the slogans that the campaign of the Historical Pact, the left-wing alliance led by Petro, is using.
As this candidate is the favorite in the polls, the phrase expresses his ambition to win the presidential election in the first roundwhich will be held on May 29.
To achieve this and avoid going to a second round, he needs to get more than half of the votes.
After learning of his suspension, Quintero wrote several messages on the social network Twitter, including: “The coup d’état has started in Colombia”, “Uribe and Cabello agreed to remove me from office” or “Democracy is at risk”.
image source, Getty Images
Analysis by Daniel Pardo, BBC Mundo correspondent in Colombia
The Colombian attorney has remarkable power and it tends to show it, above all, in the sanction and removal processes of mayors and governors in a country where corruption and patronage seem to be the order of the day.
When Petro was mayor of Bogotá, a politician akin to uribismAlejandro Ordoñez was the attorney general. And he dismissed him in a controversial case that brought Petro, who denounced a coup, to the public square and promoted his speech. Then he was reinstated, but the figure of him was empowered.
Now, another politician who was part of a Uribe government, Margarita Cabello, former Minister of Justice of the president, Iván Duque, dismisses an also controversial -and anti-Uribe- mayor of Medellín.
The legal arguments for the removals may well sound reasonable. Its political impact, however, is incalculable.
Even if the appeals to which Quintero is entitled result in his reinstatement quickly, the political fact, three weeks before the first round of the presidential elections, has already taken place. And it’s hard to know what the implications of it might be.
image source, Getty Images
image source, Getty Images
Gustavo Petro is heading towards the presidential elections as the favorite.
The memory of Petro in Bogotá
Quintero’s provisional dismissal, which in theory is for three months, recalls Petro’s controversial suspension during his mayoralty in Bogotá, between 2012 and 2015.
The suspension, which in practice lasted just over a month, was due to alleged errors and illegal decrees in the process of transforming the garbage collection system in the city, which was partially private and Petro wanted to make public.
The case was reviewed, at Petro’s request, by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which ruled in his favor, alleging that, in that case, the Attorney General did not have the authority to remove a leader elected by popular vote.
On April 22, 2014, the Superior Court of Bogotá upheld the precautionary measures announced by the IACHR and Petro had to be reinstated as mayor.
Years later, the Council of State, a court in charge of administrative cases, declared the dismissal illegitimate and ordered compensation for Petro.
It is not clear whether the IACHR resolution applies in Quintero’s case.
Quintero, a young engineer who was part of the government of President Juan Manuel Santos, became mayor of Medellin as an independent, without the support of Uribismo, a historic force in that region, or the left.
Last year his mandate tried to be revoked by a civil society group supported by Uribe through signatures and an eventual referendum, but the process is frozen.
Although many agree with the Attorney General’s Office that its intervention in the campaign was evident and illegal, critics of the government assure that the sanction should also apply to executive officials, including the president, and the Armed Forceswho have also made allegedly proselytizing comments in the middle of the campaign, especially against Gustavo Petro.
image source, Getty Images
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