The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, reiterated this Friday that the magistrates of the electoral authority who administratively sanctioned his 2022 campaign for irregular financing and violation of expense limits are his «political rivals» and want to «stage a coup».
«We are being judged by our political rivals, we do not admit that. The trial against any political conduct of a movement must be in accordance with the universal principle of an independent, neutral judge and not of our own opposition, which wants to stage a coup», Petro said in a speech.
The head of state referred to magistrate Majer Abushihab, who is the lawyer of the mayor of Medellín, opposition leader Federico ‘Fico’ Gutiérrez, and whose vote on Thursday completed the majority of six magistrates who approved the ruling of the National Electoral Council (CNE) that found irregularities in the financing of his campaign.
«The conjudge is the current paid lawyer of Mr. Fico Gutiérrez, a member of the Colombian opposition», Petro insisted.
Petro again denied that «a single peso from drug trafficking» had entered his campaign and that expense limits had been exceeded.
He argued that the CNE sanction took into account an event that occurred «after the electoral campaign», about which he gave no further details, and another related to «electoral witnesses, which is a right of citizenship so that votes are not stolen».
He also questioned that the electoral authority «makes it seem like an over-limit» the contributions that were made to his campaign by the Colombian Federation of Educators (Fecode) and the Workers' Union (USO) because, according to him, «the Colombian right» received similar donations at that «same moment», although «not from unions but from bosses, bankers, corporate corporations».
«Why are the donations from unions over-limits, which are donations according to Colombian law, and why are the donations from bankers and business corporations not? Because some are rich and others are poor, because the rich support the far right and the poor support progressivism», he stated.
The plenary session of the CNE determined on Thursday that Petro's 2022 presidential campaign exceeded financing limits in the first and second rounds by more than 3.5 billion pesos (about 940,000 dollars at today's rate) and received prohibited contributions.
This is the first time in the country's history that the electoral authority has sanctioned a presidential campaign.
In this case, the campaign manager and current president of the state oil company Ecopetrol, Ricardo Roa; the auditor, María Lucy Soto, and the treasurer, Lucy Aydée Mogollón, were sanctioned with fines exceeding 5.9 billion pesos (about 1.5 million dollars).
Colombia Humana, Petro's party, and the Patriotic Union (UP) were also sanctioned «individually and with a fine equivalent to 583 million» pesos (about 155,000 dollars).
