Investigating possible fraud in recent legislative elections

One of the most worrying is the Choco department, where cases were deleted data in computer systems and municipalities with more votes than voters, according to a report released today by the Bogota newspaper El Tiempo and reviewed by the German news agency DPA .

The CNE decided to do a thorough review of the voting for the Senate in 22 municipalities in Choco where irregularities were reported.

According to the paper, the large irregularities is favored by the Senate candidate Astrid Sanchez Montes de Oca, Social Party of National Unity (Partido de la U, President Alvaro Uribe), who seeks to regain the bank that lost her brother Odin, prisoner the case of “para-politics”.

A case that drew the attention of NEC occurred in the town of Bethlehem, Docampo, where only 531 people were eligible to vote, although in the polls appeared 814 votes.

Initially, the CNE had ordered recounting of votes in nine municipalities in Choco, but a few days ago increased the number to 22, while decided to count votes for the House of Representatives (MPs) for the entire department. The agency is also investigating irregularities in the Valle del Cauca department, where even some political leaders called for the annulment of the elections.

In this department there is evidence of transfer of votes from one candidate to another, impersonation of voters, increase voter atypical and vote buying in 12 municipalities, including Cali, its capital.

Juries in a table installed in the municipality of Jamundi said at the end of voting that no one had paid there, but later appeared in the count 62 votes for Senator of the Party of the U Dilian Francisca Toro, who is embroiled in a scandal since Hernando Gomez drug trafficker extradited to the United States, said the month past that financed his Senate campaign in 2002.

Other departments in which the NEC pays special attention are Bolivar, Cesar, Cordoba, Magdalena, Sucre and Narino. In the latter province were reported pressures of a paramilitary group linked to drug trafficking for voters to support some candidates.

Congress elected for the period 2006-10 was marred by scandal the “para-politics”, in which about 70 legislators were committed, of which about 30 ended up behind bars and more than 20 resigned, mostly right-wing coalition government.

According to a cross-checking the results of the ballots so far known data and judicial bodies, about 25 percent of elected senators have trouble with the law for alleged links with paramilitaries and guerrillas or political ties to being investigated.

Lawmakers peppered with these cases are linked mainly to mob16vements officially part of the U, Conservative Party (PC) and Party of National Integration (PIN), the most won seats in Congress who will meet in the period 2010-14. (Telam) ajl-mag 11/04/2010 18:45