(CNN Spanish) – Rodolfo Hernandez, the presidential candidate for the Anti-Corruption Leaders Association, told CNN on Wednesday that he has appealed a contempt order imposed on him by a judge in Bucaramanga, the capital of Santander province. “I don’t have a case, I have 200 political cases who wanted me out of the mayor’s office,” he said.
The 16th Municipal Civil Court in Bucaramanga decided last week to sentence him to five days in prison, with the possibility of mitigating it by paying just over $2,600 for failure to comply with the court order.
The case goes back two years when Hernandez, in one of the typical videos he posted on TikTok in 2020, described the former mayor of FloridaBlanca as corrupt. According to local media reports, a judge at the time ruled in favor of the former mayor and ordered Hernandez to remove videos from social networks in which he spoke against the former official’s “reputation and honor”.
When the news was announced, Hernandez responded on Twitter on May 25 and believed it was a maneuver to stem the “unstoppable growth” of his candidacy. He wrote before the presidential election: “You can see the fear of change we will bring on Sunday, May 29th, a change they will never be able to stop. There is no right!”
Yelber Vega and Els Borrero contributed to this report.