Gustavo Petro, progressive candidate in Sunday’s Colombian presidential elections, has publicly claimed that there is a conspiracy to stage a coup or cancel the election rather than accept his triumph. He and Afro-Colombian running mate Francia Marquez, who have been the target of attacks in the past, have received death threats and in Colombia’s peculiar democracy they must appear at rallies protected by armored shields in this last week leading up to the elections.
Four leftist or progressive presidential candidates have been assassinated in Colombia since 1980. Not to mention the murder in 1948 of Jorge Eliécer Gaytán, candidate of the Liberal Party, but with definite popular national roots and vocation, which ushered in the period known as La Violencia.
