By Over Cordoba Renteriateacher and writer from Bagados
We could not trace the moment in history in which some Chocoano political leader, who lacked arguments to convince his constituents, decided to adopt infallible tricks to achieve power and thus begin to sow misery in a department that had been growing at good pace in the business and industrial sector.
This strategy of buying votes and selling the vote to later recover the money while in power, is already a popular voice in all regions of the country, where the most common expressions among residents and the same political actors is “Those who do not have money will hardly be able to win”, “He who does not have his money here cannot win”, “We have the machinery (money) to win from afar, that is later recovered”.
This illegal activity began with aspirants to occupy the first magistracies in the municipalities and the governorship, but gradually, it permeated all areas of the administration where votes are needed to hold a position. If an Ordinance needs to be approved, the governors offer money to the deputies; If an agreement needs to be approved, the mayors offer to the councilors, and so on in the other entities of the national order where the vote is no longer discretionary and voluntary to become something that is mercantilist.
It should be mentioned that in the department of Chocó no politician offers money at public meetings; Offerings are made privately to community leaders, neighborhoods or to individual persons according to the number of family members or friends. That is to say, if a family is made up of 10 people who can vote, asks for two million pesos with the commitment that each one seeks a vote, the politician gives that money and each member of the family offers 50,000 to the vote they get, this it’s just a mode. Another is that a community comes together to look at what they need and they tell the candidate what they need, for example, putting a roof on the communal house and that if he commits to getting them what is required for it, he has the votes of that community.
On election day, that is, that Sunday in October, the candidate sends money to various leaders, they are located at different points in the municipalities, either near the polls or in remote neighborhoods, they send others to fish in troubled river, they approach with the possible voters to where the one who has the money, they make the commitment, the one who is going to vote must take a photo of the marked card, then return with the evidence to receive their payment.
This purchase of votes, more than anything else, is done with the neighborhoods that go to their municipalities of origin to vote for the so-called rummage. You see the return cars full of people narrating how much money they collected in the great electoral bazaar. It should be noted that, for the different municipalities and neighborhoods, both candidates for the governorship and for mayors and assemblies send money, but candidates for council also offer money.
On many occasions the candidates do not have the necessary resources to pay for their campaigns and for this, they use the so-called financiers; They put the money in exchange for positions, contracts or money back with very high interests that are not easy to pay at times. Thus, when a president finds it difficult to pay the money to the financier, he makes use of all his power to persecute him, from complicity with control agencies and others, to political persecution.
Some politicians who once held positions for buying votes have begun to notice that every day it is more difficult to recover all the money they invest in campaigns, since hiring controls have increased and it is no longer so easy to get more than what which is inverted However, made the law, made the trap, there are always ways to steal State resources.
The costs of the campaigns in Chocó are high because the same people, due to mistrust of the politicians in the territory, arrive asking in advance, according to what is said in the streets and sidewalks, it is that these politicians after they come to power do not they fulfill the commitments and are dedicated to filling their pockets; However, this practice causes misery to increase every four years and no real solutions are seen to the many problems that afflict Chocó and its populations.
It is important that the population also become aware, if they ask a candidate for a lot, they should know that he will not do much if he comes to power and there is no way to complain to him, but if the residents refuse to receive and ask for money and other things, surely, whoever gets elected will have more freedom to govern and do things for the communities, since they would not have to pay debts acquired at such high costs.
On the other hand, it has been shown that the colonies do a lot of damage to the Chocoan populations at electoral times, because the cost of transportation and food must be borne by the candidate from cities such as Bogotá, Medellín, Pereira, Cali, among others.
The most unfortunate thing is that voters come to the communities and ask all the candidates for money, which raises campaign costs even more. These colonies, to a large extent, define or elect the ruler of the regions. They leave with the money collected and leave those who inhabit the territory permanently, suffering the terrible consequences every four years, that is a constant behavior. It would be interesting if the Registrar’s Office forced Colombian citizens to vote in their place of residence and not in their place of origin. Well, that has been doing great damage to populations like those of Chocó.
The politician delivers the money because they ask for it and the voter asks for it because he needs it. Both behaviors are reprehensible and in this sense there should be a reform and stronger controls to punish the offender.
It is time that both the political leaders of Chocó, as well as its inhabitants, make a pact not to buy or sell the vote, where the commitment to achieve real changes in the population and the territory can be evidenced. We agree that the violence, unemployment and other problems that afflict Chocó start from political campaigns, because the expenses of the candidates are many and they come to power to recover all the money they invested in the electoral process.
The sad thing about all this is that the people are never enough, the works are never finished, the money is never enough and the white elephants grow until they become giant mammoths. Chocó deserves another luck.