THE POSSIBILITY of entering money from prohibited sources during this campaign is much greater, due to the presence of more candidates seeking resources to finance their proselytizing activities in the regions.
This was reported by Andrés Hernández, executive director of Transparencia por Colombia, in conversation with EL NUEVO SIGLO. He also said that it is necessary to strengthen the control mechanisms for the next elections.
THE NEW CENTURY: What are the risks of illegal money entering for the development of campaigns for the regional elections in October?
ANDRES HERNANDEZ: This is a risk that has always been present in our political-electoral system. The difference with the context we are currently experiencing is that, firstly, we are going to have many more political parties; therefore, the possibility of having many more applications. Territory campaigns typically have around 100,000 candidates or more, so there is a higher demand for campaign funding.
Where does that funding come from? In Colombia, the largest percentage, in practice, comes from private sources, since, unfortunately, public financing has not been flexible enough to offset the weight of dependence on private sources.
In a scenario where we have many candidates looking for more money, the risk of incorporating illicit resources is greater. If we add that, with so many candidates and parties, the capacities of the electoral bodies to control this have automatically increased, then we are in a scenario of greater risk and before a control that is not necessarily articulated to the risk that we are demonstrating.
ENS: Given this scenario, how are you preparing to reduce the risk of illicit money entering campaigns?
AH: A first call made by Transparency for Colombia is to the political parties so that they are aware that the delivery of guarantees must be accompanied by a process of training and education of the candidacies that they support, regarding the rules of campaign financing.
Not only in terms of what they have to report, since anyone who is a candidate, regardless of whether they win the election or not, has to account for their campaign financing. So, in this role of providing endorsements from the parties, hopefully it will be accompanied by more training on how to be accountable, on prohibited sources and sanctions that candidates may be exposed to in case of not reporting as it should or of incurring to prohibited sources.
ENS: In this type of situation that seems inevitable in elections of this nature, what is the call that you make to the control organisms, especially to the electoral entities?
AH: We call on the National Electoral Council to continue strengthening control mechanisms. We know that regulations have been issued regarding the obligation to report in real time on campaign income and expenses, but this must be complemented with a better capacity for monitoring and, when necessary, sanctioning by the electoral entity in the event of non-compliance with that report.
In many of these cases, we are talking about the risk of financing criminal organizations and that means that we need more efficient instruments and much more associated with the fight against organized crime in order to uncover these networks.
For this, the cooperation of other State entities such as the Prosecutor’s Office and other control instances is needed so that there can be priority attention to those issues that are developed in sufficient actions to detect this type of possible conduct.
ENS: Do you think that political parties should be co-responsible to guarantee control of the finances of their candidates in each of the regions?
AH: Our call is for the parties to assume this co-responsibility much more seriously and efficiently. In formal terms, in our country, in cases of prohibited financing that have been declared by the competent authorities, in very few cases there is an effect on political parties.
Political parties manage to escape that responsibility. But this is completely related to the right they have to deliver these guarantees.
Normative
ENS: Has progress been made in terms of regulations to curb the entry and use of prohibited funds for electoral campaigns?
AH: For these elections we do not have a new rule that addresses this issue. We have the current regulations from previous elections, plus, as I said before, some resolutions that we highlight from the National Electoral Council, such as the real-time report on campaign income and expenses.
We believe that we must move forward in achieving more agility, efficiency and better conditions for candidates to access public financing. We show many obstacles to open bank accounts, we also see that there are weaknesses in the candidates when it comes to knowing these rules. So, we have to face more challenging elections with the same instruments as before.
ENS: What are the risks that Transparency for Colombia envisions for these elections regarding electoral crimes such as “transhumance”?
AH: They are very latent risks for these elections. However, one of our biggest concerns is the need to make efforts to be much more strategic when it comes to dismantling the networks that allow this to happen.
Our law, unfortunately, gives greater importance to the sanction of the person who delivers the resource and the person who receives it. But behind this scheme, there are organized networks of people close to political circles, who engineer this type of process.
ENS: What to do in the face of the risks of interference by criminal groups in this new electoral contest?
AH: We join the calls of the Electoral Observation Mission, which has expressed serious concern regarding threats and assassinations of candidates at this stage of the elections, in a pattern that seems to be even more worrisome than previous elections.