It must be remembered that the Plenary Chamber of the National Electoral Council in a session on October 8 of this year, decided by majority to open an investigation and file charges against the first and second round presidential campaign of the Historical Pact coalition, represented by Gustavo Francisco Petro, candidate; Ricardo Roa, campaign manager.
In this order, the candidate, campaign manager, treasurer and auditors are charged with the alleged violation of the spending limit in the first round campaign for $3,709,361,342 million.
Analyze the support provided
Now on January 22, 2024, three people who identified themselves as ‘judicial police servants’, in order to comply with what was ordered by the Sixth Delegate Prosecutor’s Office before the Supreme Court of Justice, raided the offices of the Colombian Federation of Educators (Fecode) in Bogotá.
In this sense, Jairo Losada, president of the National Association of Huilenses Institores (Adih), pointed out. “Popular organizations, unions, have always supported political parties that participate in electoral processes, and gentlemen from other communities have done so, in which the presence of resources from private companies in presidential campaigns has been demonstrated.”
The manager added “as a union organization committed to the defense of public education, we are ‘pushing’ the reform of the General Participation System, we seek to make the school a territory of peace, we identify with an electoral campaign and Fecode, decides to support This political party, however, those resources were not given to Gustavo Petro, as they want to make it out to be. “That creates a tastelessness in democracy.”
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The signs
As stated by the National Electoral Council, who decided by majority to open an investigation and file charges against the first and second round presidential campaign of the Historic Pact coalition, represented by Gustavo Francisco Petro, candidate; Ricardo Roa, campaign manager; Lucy Aydee Mogollón, treasurer, María Lucy Soto and Carlos Lemus, auditors; to the Colombia Humana political movement and the Patriotic Union political party; for the alleged violation of the financing regime for electoral campaigns.
Additionally, due to the alleged prohibited financing, upon receiving contributions from legal entities: 1) Colombian Federation of Education Workers – Fecode; 2) Ingenial Media SAS and 3) Union Sindical Obrera – USO.
Finally, to the Colombia Humana Political Movement and the Unión Patriótica (UP) political party, as political organizations designated in the coalition agreement as responsible for the audit and presentation of income and expense reports of the first round presidential campaign of the Historic Pact Coalition, for allegedly allowing the financing of the presidential campaign, with prohibited financing sources.
Magistrates’ investigations
The president of the Adih questioned the following, “like the Huilense magistrate, Álvaro Hernán Prada, who is being investigated for serious crimes against democracy, who has investigations for false witnesses, one wonders with what ethical and moral criteria? “He is going to prosecute a man who has contributed so much to Colombia, the results have been seen at an economic, inflation and health level.”
It must be remembered that in the month of May of this year, the Supreme Court of Justice finalized the judgment against the judge of the National Electoral Council (CNE) Álvaro Hernán Prada, accused of having committed the crime of witness manipulation in the process faced by the former president of the Republic Álvaro Uribe Vélez, when he was carrying out his work as a congressman.
“The first instance chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice resolves not to decree the annulment of the proceedings as requested by the defendant’s defender,” read Judge Ariel Torres, in charge of the case, thus ending the investigation against the former parliamentarian and member of the CNE will remain under the jurisdiction of the organization and denied the thesis that it was the domain of the Attorney General’s Office.
President Gustavo Petro already made accusations against the former representative to the Chamber for Huila, close to former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez. And, with a short, but forceful message, he attacked the former parliamentarian. “Simply, this man does not have any authority to judge me because he considers himself my political enemy,” said the president.
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Leaving office process
Later, the teacher added: “even if they say that this investigation does not affect the president of Colombia, that they are not going to remove him from office, it is pushing for a process of leaving office, and it will happen the same as what happened when he was mayor of the capital of the country, is what we call the ‘soft coup’, that is why the labor confederations call on the popular sectors, on October 23 of the current year to carry out a new day of mobilization, because the teachers who have Given the work done by the government, we are not going to allow these ‘scoundrels’, they want to get him out with traps and setups.”
And given the possibility of an investigation against Fecode, for financing the presidential campaign, the manager highlighted. “There is a bad intention here, perversity, because the Democratic Center party has always had Fecode in its ‘sights’ and its senators have expressed this, because they believe that education is a service, and they hope that it will be delivered to the merchants “They have even called us ‘indoctrinators’, that’s why they smear this organization, in order to remove its legal status, that’s why the National Electoral Council is going to be sued, for those lies.”
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They won’t recognize the decision!
For his part, Héctor Carvajal, lawyer for President Gustavo Petro, assured that they do not intend to recognize the CNE’s decision, since they consider it outside the legal framework. And he ratified what Vice Chancellor Jorge Rojas Rodríguez announced regarding the request for provisional measures for the president before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
“What is sought is to ratify the precautionary measures to protect the president’s position, as the aforementioned body has already done in the past,” said the lawyer.
“The CNE creates a situation that could lead to a process to remove the President of the Republic and the Vice President,” Vice Chancellor Jorge Rojas Rodríguez said in his statement.
He added that the CNE could process this process in the Chamber’s Impeachment Commission. «There is already an investigation process against the president“, said. He added that the president requests that the 33 pieces of evidence and the three judicial processes that are in the Commission be made public evidence so that there is transparency.
In that sense, Article 199 of the Magna Carta indicates: “the President of the Republic, during the period for which he is elected, or whoever is in charge of the Presidency, may not be persecuted or tried for crimes, except by virtue of of impeachment by the House of Representatives and when the Senate has declared that there is room for a case to be formed.”