(Bloomberg) — Colombian President Gustavo Petro said that an investigation into whether his son took money from organized crime must be allowed to follow its course, since “no one can be above the law.”
(Bloomberg) — Colombian President Gustavo Petro said that an investigation into whether his son took money from organized crime must be allowed to follow its course, since “no one can be above the law.”
A prosecutor said Thursday that Petro’s eldest son Nicolás put some of the tainted money to his father’s successful 2022 campaign, and kept some of it for himself.
The scandal is likely to further weaken the leftist government’s ability to pass its radical health, pension and labor reforms, and may also hurt its performance in upcoming regional elections in October.
“The Petro administration lost a lot of leverage with this,” said Sergio Guzman, the director of Colombia Risk Analysis, a Bogota-based consultancy. “It was going to have a difficult time to move things through in congress, but this makes it all the more difficult.”
Even so, people who think Petro is now finished are “jumping the gun”, Guzman said.
Investors often welcome developments that hinder Petro’s welfare reforms, fearing these will blow out the fiscal deficit. The peso was 1.9% stronger at 10.40 a.m. in Bogota, the best performance in emerging markets.
Building a Case
Thursday’s court hearings implicated several people who will now be called as witnesses as prosecutors build their case. This means that the process will take a long time to play out.
Even if the case goes nowhere, the investigations could absorb “most of Petro’s time and energy”, said Andrés Mejía, a political consultant who teaches at the business school in Bogota’s Los Andes University.
However, no Colombian president has ever been successfully impeached since “the system is heavily skewed toward stability”, Mejia said.
Read more: How Colombia’s First Leftist Presidency Was Derailed: QuickTake
The government was already reeling from a scandal in June, in which leaked audio messages implicated Petro’s chief of staff and his former campaign chief in possible violations of electoral financing rules.
Colombia’s first leftist leader, who celebrates his first year in office this year, is set to end his term in 2026.
“Justice must be applied impartially, with due process, and with all constitutional guarantees,” President Petro said in a statement. He has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, or any knowledge of irregularities in the financing of his campaign.
Read more: Colombia Prosecutor Says Criminals Financed Petro’s Campaign
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