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Feb
20
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From Venezolana de Televisión (VTV), translated by P&JfC
An international electoral observer mission in Colombia has today expressed concern about the fairness of upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections in March and May of this year. They believe the electoral process has been marred by bribes, assassinations and persecution.
The director of the NGO “Americas Program of the International Relations Centre (IRC)” Laura Carlsen, has said that during her visit members of the mission have heard from the people that they interviewed that the candidates from the governing parties have used government subsidies to force people to vote for them.
In poor neighbourhoods where many people live from government subsidies, governing party candidates have been recorded telling people that the subsidies will end if they are not elected.
The threats to poor neighbourhoods are not the only electoral crime that has tarnished these elections, according to Carlsen the mission head;
“The threat from armed groups makes up the biggest threat to a clean and fair process”.
Another international observer mission led by the US based NGO Global Exchange that visited the departments of Cordoba, Antioquia, Santander and Valle del Cauca. In the document that they presented today they expressed concern about the possibility of the assassination of people involved in the electoral process, and the persecution of community leaders. They highlighted that fear was present in every sphere of Colombian Society.
Gimena Sanchez from the US based NGO Wola, used a case from Buenaventura (Valle del Cauca), where according to her testimony people are being disappeared so as that they do not register in the statistics of electoral violence.
the mission stated that; “Independent journalists expressed concern to the observer mission about death threats that they have received when they denounce electoral fraud and violence”. The observer mission also stated that most of the media has applied self censorship or given a disproportionate coverage to certain campaigns over others.
