(CNN Spanish) — The government of Colombia expressed his disagreement this Friday with the statements of the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who said during a press conference that the leftist presidential candidate Gustavo Petro he was the victim of a “most undignified and cowardly dirty war”.
The Colombian Foreign Ministry He expressed on Twitter that the Mexican president’s statements “constitute a disrespectful interference in the internal affairs of our country.” He added that “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 of high dignitaries.”
The Foreign Ministry asks López Obrador to respect “the autonomy of the Colombian people to choose their next president without interference that tries to influence voters.”
The messages from the Colombian government emerged after the Mexican president said in his traditional morning conference that he was sending a “hug” to Petro.
“And do you know why I embrace him? Because he is facing a most undignified and cowardly dirty war, everything we have already seen and suffered in Mexico,” said López Obrador, mentioning “mercenary publicists” as responsible for the alleged campaign. who have “control of all media”.
“I hope that the people in Colombia do not allow themselves to be manipulated and that they act freely and vote for whoever they want, but not for that dirty war, because it is a contempt for the person, it is to think that the human being can be manipulated, it is an object, not a subject,” López Obrador added.
The Mexican Presidency informed CNN that it will not comment for the moment.
Before the May 29 elections, Gustavo Petro and other candidates for the Colombian Presidency denounced being victims of dirty campaigns.
Petro, the candidate of the Historical Pact, obtained the largest number of votes during the first round and will face the standard-bearer of the League of Anticorruption Governors, Rodolfo Hernández, in the second round, scheduled for June 19.
Alberto Bello contributed to this report.