After several months of legal obstacles, pressure on contractors, unsubstantiated accusations and complaints between the parties, the National Electoral Council (CNE) gave the final blow to the recall process against the mandate of Mayor Daniel Quintero, in a decision that was already seen come.
With seven votes in favor and two save votes, the magistrates endorsed the presentation of their colleague César Abreo not to certify the accounting statements of the collection of signatures and to formulate charges against six members of the recall committee. With this, the possibility of citizens being summoned to the polls before June 30 of this year was left far behind.
Abreo’s speech was supported by seven of the magistrates, including Renato Contreras, of the Democratic Center, who last week asked to review the 2,000 pages of the file to verify if the evidence related to the process was adjusted to the meaning of Abreo’s speech. Those who did save their vote were magistrates Hernán Penagos Giraldo, from the Partido de la U, and Pedro Felipe Gutiérrez, from the CD.
Regarding the charges against the promoters, the CNE established that the first of them has to do with the fact that “all the contributions in money or in kind” made by natural or legal persons to the campaign do not appear in the financial statements. signature collection.
This point is special because would be related to the rental of chairs, tents and tables that would not have been reported as campaign expenses, even when the recall leaders assured that everything was presented to the CNE as required by law. Even that the value of what were considered donations in kind was quantified and reported in the accounting report.
The second charge refers to an alleged violation of caps in the campaign for the collection of citizen support signatures, which is set at $236 million. Nevertheless, the leaders of the recall have assured on several occasions that this amount was not exceeded and that each peso that was spent was stipulated in the reportwho was paid and for what concept.
In any case, the CNE’s decision orders the opening of investigations, for an alleged violation of articles 11 and 12 of Law 1757 of 2011, against Andrés Felipe Rodríguez Puerta, Jorge Alejandro Posada Jaramillo, Luis Alfonso García Carmona, Jaime Gonzalo Torres Ojeda and Julio Enrique González Villa, members of the recall committee, and Raúl Bautista Quiroga, accountant of the recall campaign.
pressure on magistrates
The decision of the CNE is known one day after the Superior Court of Medellín gave the magistrates 48 hours to certify or not the committee’s accounts, at the risk of incurring an order of contempt of a guardianship of March 18 in which it gave them 10 days to make that decision.
The magistrates anticipated their decision in yesterday’s plenary session, despite the fact that they had abstained from voting on the proposal since before Easter and the last thing that was known was that Contreras was going to review the entire file, which did not happen, given the decision that was made yesterday.
After learning about the decision through the press and social networks, Andrés Rodríguez stated that this situation goes against reality and that it is one more measure to hinder the process and ensure that citizens cannot go to the polls at the right times. established for this purpose. This is because although the recall vote can be held until December 31 of this year, the deadline to elect a new mayor at the polls is until June 30 of this year, that is, 18 months before the end of the current period. If the recall wins, someone from the same political team as Quintero should be appointed to the position, which on paper would translate into a government in a foreign body.
In the night, Councilman Julio González criticized that the CNE had not notified them of its decision before leaking the information to Quintero and said that he is calm about facing any investigation. “The funding, which was very little, was made with donations made by the citizens of Medellin, simple and good people, who only want to exercise their legitimate right,” he said.
As if that were not enough, it was also surprising that, as has happened on other occasions, the mayor first announced the CNE’s decision at a press conference, before the electoral tribunal reported it. On the outskirts of La Alpujarra he was accompanied by councilors from the government coalition, such as Carlos Romero and Lucas Cañas; various office secretaries; and his wife Diana Osorio.
“From the first day we were elected, the persecution against us began, a political, economic, media and even family persecution. They staged a revocation of us allied with condemned contractors and orphans of power, who dedicated themselves to harming Medellín. However, and despite everything, today justice has been done”, said the mayor, following the tone he has used throughout the process that tried to remove him from office due to the discontent of several citizens with his management.
A tone that has been marked by serious accusations, many of them without evidence, against the people who lead the process. The most recent of them is that among the donations to the campaign there was money from drug trafficking and criminals. For these expressions, complaints have already been announced for libel and slander, waiting for him to present the evidence to support his remarks.
For the time being, Rodríguez announced that they will take the legal actions they still have to defend themselves against the charges against them. But time is running against them: while they prove that the caps were not violated and that they reported every penny, as they claim, the weeks will continue to tick by and the delays that were put into the process from the beginning will continue to have an effect.
Some of the most notorious controversies that the process had