The president of the Guadeloupe region, Ary Chalus, is referred to the Basse-Terre criminal court for a hearing scheduled over two days, March 30 and 31, by direct citation from the public prosecutor. The world has had confirmation of this information published by the Guadeloupe channel on 1reTuesday, February 28.
The head of the list (Guadeloupe united, united and responsible) of the campaign “Change the future” of 2015, is criticized for having spent twice as much as the authorized ceiling: a total of 170,966 euros too much, which was added to the 160,788 that he had declared – the legal ceiling amounting to 168,833. our information, the regional elected official, who in 2017 became a supporter of President Emmanuel Macron’s party, is cited with four other co-defendants – his campaign manager, the treasurer, a member of the team and the director general of community services. Great South Caribbean agglomeration.
Most of the excess expenses relate to the sound system for electoral meetings and printing services, some of which were paid in cash, according to the elements gathered by the prosecution. Other invoices correspond to catering costs – for example, 6,626 euros at the restaurant Le Christo, on December 14, 2015, or 5,326 euros for drinks purchased from the wholesale company PHP Trading, for the various offices of the candidate.
“Services” to a journalist
We also find, in the list drawn up by the prosecutor of Basse-Terre, 21,989 euros of “benefits” paid to the political journalist of Guadeloupe 1re Gilbert Pincemail. The latter has a public relations consultancy firm. He had been sentenced in this context, in 2018, for abuse of social property, to nine months in prison suspended and a fine of 30,000 euros. His companion, the regional councilor Maguy Céligny, had been sentenced for the same facts to a one-year suspended sentence and a 50,000 euro fine.
Prosecutor Xavier Sicot also accuses the former mayor of Baie-Mahault of having embezzled, between 2015 and 2018, funds to the detriment of an association with a social and cultural aim: donations made to Alliance baie-mahaultienne, which he chaired, would have financed his political activities. In 2021, the prosecution had Ary Chalus placed in police custody for thirty hours and had carried out searches at the Bay-Mahaultian Alliance.
The federation of the Socialist Party (PS), with its head of the list, the former minister Victorin Lurel, opponent of Ary Chalus, had filed a complaint in 2019. In 2015, Mr. Chalus had won in the second round with 57, 49% of the vote – he will be widely re-elected in 2021. “We had seen that many young people had been hired and that Mr. Chalus’ team was present everywhere on the ground, in all the municipalities, with great resources”, explains Olivier Nicolas, federal secretary of the PS. Today, the latter could constitute a civil party, as the public prosecutor invited him to do.
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