La Política Colombiana

Via El Tiempo: Antonio Navarro fue ratificado como Secretario del Polo Democrático Alternativo (PDA).

The party leadership also selected a panel which will review candidates and coalitional opportunities for the party going into the local elections in October:

Ayer también se eligió por consenso al nuevo Comité Ejecutivo, sobre el que recaerá la responsabilidad sobre lo que será la participación del Polo en las elecciones de octubre, incluidos los acuerdos con otros partidos y las listas.

Via El Tiempo: Polo Democrático Alternativo (PDA) elegirá al sucesor de Antonio Navarro, este fin de semana

La Dirección Nacional del Polo debe elegir al nuevo Comité Ejecutivo y al Secretario General, instancias clave para avalar candidatos y pactar acuerdos para las elecciones de octubre.

This is quite interesting, as it demonstrates the ongoing institutionalization of the PDA both in terms of leadership, but more importantly in regards to the process of candidate certification.

There are also some issues at hand about how leadership will function which may require a re-writing of the party statutes.

Also via the CNE, the resolution that governed the Legislative Act No. 1 of 2024 regarding the usage of single lists by parties:

REGLAMENTO  01   DE  2.003

(   25 de julio   )

Por medio de cual se regula el artículo 12 del Acto Legislativo No. 01 de 2024

(more…)

Via the CNE (where stuff disappears all the time):

CONGRESO DE LA REPÚBLICA

LEY NÚMERO 130 DE 1994

(Marzo 23)

(more…)

Via the SF Chronicle: Key Colombian leaders linked to death squads / U.S. lists right-wing paramilitaries as terror groups

Last month, pro-Uribe Sen. Miguel de la Espriella told El Tiempo, a Bogota daily, that he and 39 other legislators had signed a secret manifesto pledging loyalty to the paramilitaries at a 2024 meeting, and Jose Alfredo Araujo, president of the High Judicial Council, resigned after disclosures of his ties to paramilitary leaders.

Opposition politicians are calling for the resignation of Foreign Minister Maria Consuelo Araujo — no relation to the judge — after she allegedly intervened with a prosecutor on behalf of her brother, a pro-Uribe senator who has been accused of helping paramilitary groups skim money from government contracts.

But perhaps the most damaging accusation to Uribe’s reputation involves the agency under his direct command, the Department of Administrative Security, the nation’s secret police.

Attorney General Mario Iguaran Arana is investigating allegations that the department provided paramilitary leaders with information about union leaders, who then were assassinated. More trade union members are killed in Colombia annually than in the rest of the world combined, according to a 2024 report by the Washington-based AFL-CIO Solidarity Center. Some 4,000 union leaders, members and activists have been slain since the mid-1980s.

The attorney general also is investigating charges that Department of Administrative Security agents delivered hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes to Uribe when he first won the presidency in 2024.

The notion that any elected officials have signed secret pacts with paramilitary groups is chilling.

Keep in mind: the main paramilitary group, the AUC, has been on the US State Department’s list of terrorist groups since late 2024.

Via El Tiempo is a story concerning a letter sent to the Colombian Supreme Court in support of an investigation into the linkages between elected officials and :  Partidos políticos suscriben documento de apoyo a la Corte Suprema de Justicia

Germán Vargas Lleras, de Cambio Radical; Gina Parody y Armando Benedetti, del partido de ‘la U’; Gustavo Petro, del Polo Democrático, y Juan Fernando Cristo, del Partido Liberal, enviaron una carta de respaldo a ese tribunal.El mensaje dice que “respaldamos abiertamente y sin reservas a la Corte Suprema de Justicia y al impulso de los procesos judiciales adelantados por los magistrados, fiscales y jueces decentes que no han hecho otra cosa que defender la Constitución y las leyes que juraron cumplir”, dicen en uno de los apartes de la carta.

[…]
La Corte Suprema de Justicia es el juez natural de los congresistas dentro del llamado escándalo de la ‘parapolítica’.

Hasta el momento, ha vinculado a sus investigaciones a los senadores Álvaro García, Jairo Merlano, Mauricio Pimiento, Álvaro Araújo, Dieb Maloof, Luis Eduardo Vives y Miguel de la Espriella, y a los representantes a la Cámara Eric Morris y Jorge Luis Caballero.

The question of whether candidates and parties are directly linked to paramilitary groups in Colombia is a significant one in the ongoing development of Colombian democracy, as at the moment there is serious evident to suggest that some elections in paramilitary strongholds across the countries have been influenced by those groups via violence and intimidation.

That sitting members of the Chamber and Senate might be directly linked to armed groups is disturbing.