The ruling by the National Electoral Council against Gustavo Petro’s campaign for exceeding legal funding limits is a political and legal blow to the left’s election aspirations next semester. After an investigation that lasted more than a year, Colombia’s highest electoral authority concluded that the current president’s campaign spent 5.3 billion pesos more than permitted during the first and second presidential rounds. In addition, it found the entry of funds from legal entities, which is prohibited in these campaigns, coming from the teachers’ union Fecode, the oil sector union Union Sindical Obrera and the company Ingenial Media. For this reason, the campaign manager and current president of Ecopetrol, Ricardo Roa, was found to be in charge; And to the auditor, Maria Lucy Soto; and to Treasurer Lucy Eddy Mogollon; And the two parties, Colombia Humana and the National Union (UP), for endorsing the campaign and not conducting the required verifications.
The consequences of the decision remain uncertain because it is the first time that the National Electoral Council has sanctioned a presidential campaign for violating funds and resource limits. According to Alejandro Muñoz Castillo, Deputy Director of the Electoral Observation Mission, the ruling “is a milestone,” demonstrating the electoral authority’s ability to monitor, and serves as a warning so that these behaviors are not repeated in the next elections.
Many opposition politicians have already celebrated the decision and even stated that what happened in 2022 was a form of corruption: “When one comes to power, this is how one governs. The National Electoral Council’s approval of President Petro’s campaign shows us that corruption began before reaching Casa de Nariño. “The minimum is for Ricardo Roa to leave the government,” centrist presidential candidate Sergio Fajardo said in an interview with the media. The senator from the Democratic Center and presidential candidate Paloma went Valencia went further, and suggested removing the president from office: “Petro broke electoral boundaries in his election to the presidency and the Constitution is quite clear: whoever rises to public office by breaking electoral boundaries is subject to the penalty of dismissal.”
For people close to the president, such as his Interior Minister, Armando Benedetti, the decision amounts to political persecution of the government. Remember that the Electoral College reflects political interests because of its composition. “The National Electoral Council has always been hostile to the government, President Petro and the historic Charter. The ruling on financing is a political attack during the election campaign. They are elected by Congress, from the lists of political parties, and if these parties remain in opposition, so are their judges.” In this vein, President Petro spoke on Thursday evening, explaining what was decided as a victory: “There is not a single weight for drug trafficking in my campaign. Three years of investigating the opposition with a majority in the CNE and they did not find any weight,” referring to more serious accusations that his campaign faced at the time. Petro also said that he did not accept the decision, and stressed that it was administrative – that is, it could be sued in court.
Aside from these political interpretations that are open to debate, there is no doubt about the legal consequences that may result from the electoral strategy pursued by the left. If a party has unresolved investigations or sanctions in the National Electoral Council, as is the case now with the National Union and Colombia Humana, it cannot merge with others, and the intention of these two formations is to join others in a huge leftist structure, the Historic Pact, with unified lists for the legislative elections in March. Only on Thursday, the Labor Chamber of the Supreme Court in Bogotá rejected the protection offered by Senators Iván Cepeda and Carlos Alberto Benavides, and former Minister Carolina Curcho, to drop the conditions imposed by the National Electoral Commission to recognize the merger of the historic charter.
UP and Human Columbia have two options. One is to accept that they committed the violation and pay the fine of more than 1000 million, in order to close the case and achieve that union on time. The other option, which is to oppose the decision, implies maintaining separate lists, which may lead to exceeding voting thresholds that are not only requirements for obtaining seats, but also for maintaining legal status. The decision to form a major unity party includes ensuring that more votes translate to members of Congress, so division runs counter to this central part of the strategy. The directors of the two sanctioned parties met on Thursday after receiving the news, but at the time of publishing this memo had not announced their decision.
The biggest complication is that the deadline to formalize applications is December 8, a date that is less than ten business days away. Former Senator Gustavo Bolívar, who became one of the most prominent leaders of the Colombian left, made clear this double difficulty. He told Radio W, “The list process for the historic Charter Conference could be complicated because the National Electoral Council imposes very heavy fines, approaching 5,000 million dollars, and until all those debts and problems that have accumulated on the parties are resolved, there will be no legal entity that guarantees their participation in 2026.”