Can the President be recalled? This would be the process to achieve it

Currently, the mandate of a governor or mayor can be terminated through revocation, but, constitutionally, it is not possible to do so with a president and therefore, Roy Barreras, who resigned from the U party on Thursday, proposed a referendum to modify the Constitution and be able to incorporate the revocation of the president.

Article 194 of the Constitution says that the death, his accepted resignation, the dismissal decreed by sentence, the permanent physical incapacity and the abandonment of the position are absolute faults of the President of the Republic, these last two declared by the Senate. Senator Barreras’ proposal is to add the revocation.

The former delegate registrar for electoral matters, Alfonso Portela, told a national media that “in order to carry out the revocation, a legal reform would have to be passed through Congress first.” otherwise a signature collection would have no effect.

In this case, Roy Barreras should register with the Registrar as a promoter and start collecting signatures in six months to be reviewed and approved within 45 days. The constitutional referendum must have a support equivalent to 5% of the electoral census (about 1,800,000 signatures) and will take place within six months after the application is submitted.

This mechanism will be approved if the Yes option obtains half plus one of the voters, as long as at least a quarter of the citizens that make up the electoral roll participate in the vote.

In the event that the referendum is approved and the Constitution is modified in this regard, El Espectador affirms that the revocation proposed by Senator Barrera would be carried out if any of these four conditions are met:

– Lack of management by the National Government, which is reflected in the economic decline that implies an increase of more than 10 percentage points in the economic poverty indices and more than five points in extreme poverty.

– That the unemployment and extreme poverty indicators have deteriorated by more than 50%

– Deterioration of public order and security in the country. The increase in the numbers of homicides, crimes of social leaders and human rights defenders, massacres, forced displacement and theft of people must be verified

– That the president limit the implementation of the Final Agreement between the FARC guerrillas and the government.

According to the proposal of the former member of the U Party, to request the revocation of the president, he must have served two years in office and the Congress will have to request it before the electoral entities. It will be verified if the conditions are met and it will only be possible to advance if, at least, 10% of congressmen make the request. If this is approved, the voting will take place in less than 30 days.

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