RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Colombian President Iván Duque assured Thursday that the Colombian Armed Forces will not contest the results of the Sunday, June 19 elections, defending that the transition to power must be “orderly and peaceful.”
“Never in a republican process of transition of power have our armed forces defied the judgment of the people. They are the guardians of order, and no one should try to change them to degrade our historic constitutional quality,” the Colombian president said at a military ceremony Thursday in Bogotá, according to the Colombian presidency.
In this way, Duque sent a message of calm to Colombians so that they could exercise their right to vote “in freedom, without pressure or fear, and with guarantee,” thanks to the implementation of the Democracy Plan, which provides for an extraordinary mobilization of the Army and the National Police throughout the Colombian territory.
“In some regions, there are armed groups that have tried to intimidate voters; in others, they have tried to intimidate voters, but here the Democracy Plan has worked, it is underway, we have deployed our entire army, our entire police force throughout the country to guarantee this freedom,” the Colombian president said at the end of the promotion ceremony of 196 cadets to lieutenant colonels.
Duque urged Colombians to go to the polls this weekend “with joy, with enthusiasm, without hatred, without pressure and fear,” stressing that the result “will always be respected” by the entire nation, including himself, the armed forces, and the rest of the institutions.
“The message that Colombia must continue to convey to the world is that we make orderly, constitutional, and peaceful transitions in the presidency,” he added.