Iván Cepeda says that anti-corruption consultation says that it did exceed the threshold – Congress – Politics

In 2018 the country experienced a historic event by holding the first popular anti-corruption consultation. This was promoted by the then senator Claudia López Hernández and the representative to the chamber Angélica Lozano of the Alianza Verde party. On August 26, 2018, Colombians went to the polls and had the option of answering seven questions that were on the ballot to be approved (Yes) or rejected (No).

However, in order for the mandates to be approved, it was necessary to obtain at least 12,140,342 votes (33.3%) and for him to obtain more than 50% of the votes. In total there were 11,674,951.

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But this Monday the event sounded again after a debate on political control in the Senate in which Iván Cepeda denounced that, having been purged of the Electoral Census in 2018, “The threshold for the consultation would have been 11,247,723, and not 12’140,342 as required. The Consultation exceeded the threshold by more than 427 thousand votes, “he warned.

The parliamentarian announced that they will take legal and legal actions “to clarify and validate the result of the 2018 Anticorruption Consultation.

Cepeda added that he found “massive inconsistencies” in the electoral roll, and for this reason he asked the Registrar to stop destroying electoral material from the votes carried out between 2015 and 2019. “This includes the 2016 Plebiscite. We have orders to destroy the material from that vote, “he said.

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According to the senator, in the last five years he found that the Electoral Census “may be inflated by more than 2.5 million ballots and that according to official sources there are more than 8 million inconsistencies.”

Senator Angélica Lozano pointed out that she categorized as “very serious” that “the Registrar’s Office did not update the electoral roll when the Anticorruption Consultation was held and that made the threshold of participants necessary to make it mandatory” higher.

“As @IvanCepedaCast showed, the electoral roll on that date had deceased, members of the public force and prisoners authorized to vote. That affects the thresholds and, thus, democracy. If it had been updated, the consultation would have exceeded the threshold with 427,228 votes, “he added.

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What was the objective of the Anti-Corruption Consultation?

These were the seven questions that were on the Anticorruption Consultation card:

Question 1: Reduce the salary of congressmen and senior government officials

Do you approve reducing the salary of congressmen from 40 to 25 Minimum Legal Monthly Wages in Force-SMLMV, setting a limit of 25 SMLMV as the maximum monthly remuneration of congressmen and senior State officials indicated in article 197 of the Political Constitution?

Question 2: Jail corrupt people and prohibit them from re-contracting with the State

Do you approve that people convicted of corruption and crimes against the public administration must serve all their sentences in jail, without the possibility of special confinement, and that the State can unilaterally terminate contracts with them and with legal entities of which they are part, without any compensation for the contractor or the possibility of re-contracting with the State?

Question 3: Mandatory transparent contracting throughout the country

Do you approve of establishing the obligation to all public and territorial entities to use standard specifications, which reduce the manipulation of qualifying and ponderable requirements and the hand-hiring with an abnormally low number of bidders, in all types of contracts with public resources?

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Question 4: Public budgets with citizen participation

Do you approve of establishing the obligation to hold public hearings so that citizens and corporations decide the breakdown and prioritization of the investment budget of the Nation, the departments and the municipalities, as well as the rendering of accounts on their contracting and execution?

Question 5: Congressmen must be held accountable for their attendance, voting and management

Do you approve to oblige congressmen and other corporations to render accounts annually on their attendance, initiatives presented, votes, debates, management of private interests or lobbyists, projects, parties and public investments that they have managed and public positions for which they have presented candidates ?

Question 6: Make public the properties and unjustified income of elected politicians and extinguish their dominance

Do you approve forcing all those elected by popular vote to make their declarations of assets, patrimony, income, payment of taxes and conflicts of interest public for scrutiny by the citizens, as a requirement to take office and exercise the position; incorporating the power to initiate criminal investigations ex officio and apply the extinction of domain to the chosen one and his potential network of front men as his spouse, partner or permanent companion, to his relatives within the fourth degree of consanguinity, second of affinity and first civil, and your partners in law or in fact?

Question 7: No more screwed in power: maximum 3 terms in public corporations

Do you approve of establishing a maximum limit of three periods to be elected and serve in the same popularly elected body such as the Senate of the Republic, the House of Representatives, the Departmental Assemblies, the Municipal Councils and the Local Administrative Boards?

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