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image source, Government of Mexico
The Colombian government issued a protest message this Friday over statements made by the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, about the Colombian presidential election.
In his morning press conference, López Obrador referred to the leftist Colombian candidate Gustavo Petrowho, according to the Mexican president, is facing “a dirty war” in his campaign for the Colombian presidency, which will be decided in the June 19 run-off against Rodolfo Hernández.
Petro could become Colombia’s first leftist president.
“Just for a moment I’m going to say that I send Petro a hug from here. And do you know why I hug him? Because he is facing a most undignified and cowardly dirty war, everything we have already seen and suffered in Mexico,” Lopez Obrador said.
The Mexican president considered that Petro is facing messages like the ones he received in 2006, when he was a candidate for the Mexican government for the first time.
“‘Petro, a danger to Colombia, a communist, a guerrilla, Colombia is going to be like Venezuela’, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But with everything, united all the conservatives, and without ethics, forgetting that politics is an ethical imperative”, Amlo added.
Given these statements, the Colombian Foreign Ministry said “expresses his disagreement” to the expressions that he considered “a intrusive interference in internal affairs of our country.”
“Colombia advances a democratic process with all the institutional guarantees for the candidates for the Presidency of the Republic. Both those who support one candidate, as well as the other, deserve all the respect of the international community and high dignitaries,” he continued.
“With the same respect that we have professed for the institutions and for the president of Mexico, we ask you to respect the autonomy of the Colombian people to choose their next president without interference that tries to influence voters,” he added.
image source, Archyde.com
Petro and his vice-presidential candidate, Francia Márquez, won the first round of Colombia’s presidential elections.
Why did AMLO talk about Petro?
López Obrador’s statements emerged when the president was talking about the actions of the last Mexican presidents in the Mexican presidential elections.
He put his experience as a candidate in 2006 as an example, as López Obrador has insisted over the years that he was the target of electoral fraud.
“[El presidente Vicente] Fox proposed that I was not going to be president and he succeeded, because the strength of a president, even if he is a bad ruler, does not stop having an impact, and even more so if you have, yes, the institution and the budget,” he said. .
He then opened a parenthesis in his exposition to refer to Gustavo Petroof whom, he said, “is facing a most undignified and cowardly dirty war.”
“Everything we have already seen and suffered in Mexico,” Amlo said.
“I do it because if someone has suffered, and I’m not exaggerating or feeling like a victim, those dirty wars are the ones who have been talking to them. For years. For this reason, courage and you have to have a lot of faith in the people, trust in the people, in the intelligence of the people, there is nothing more than that,” he added.
The president paraphrased a very popular spot against him in 2006, which said “López Obrador is a danger to Mexico”, to refer to the messages that Petro is allegedly facing in Colombia.
In the past, López Obrador has stressed that his foreign policy is one of non-interference in foreign affairs and the self-determination of peoples, concepts of the Estrada Doctrine that, he assures, his government follows.
The Mexican Foreign Ministry did not offer any immediate response to the protest of its Colombian counterpart.
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