Allied Fire: Green Alliance Councillors Denounce Alleged Case of Clientelism in Bogotá Mayor's Office

This Thursday, March 10, less than three days before the legislative elections are held in Colombia, Green Alliance councillors Luis Carlos Leal and Diego Cancino denounced that some officials of the Bogotá Mayor's Office, allegedly, would be favoring candidates for Congress of the Republic, which would represent a clear case of patronage.

In these complaints, which were made by lobbyists on the podcast by renowned journalist María Ximena Duzán, 'A Fondo', they referred to alleged meetings in which senior district administration officials would be pressuring local mayors to get votes for certain candidates, as well as the organization of a meeting with councillors in which support had been agreed to some candidates for Congress by quotas.

“A senior mayor official confirmed to us that there was a meeting of local mayors, who report to the Government Secretariat, which at that time was under the command of Luis Ernesto Gómez, where they were told: 'You as mayor are here for us. We need such candidates to double or triple the votes. How are we going to do? ' ”, said the councilman, Diego Cancino.

The lobbyist also told about a meeting in which seven councillors had participated, “which was probably at the mayor's house, but this information remains to be confirmed”, in which they were allegedly being given quotas for supporting the lists of the capital's president, Claudia López.

“This is a political project in which everyone puts and everyone wins. In which 'we give you a political force, because you need help, but also our political projects need help in Congress'. It's the logic of favors. And with that discourse of deliberative democracy and that public resources are sacred, it vanishes. Where is the big green bet. Which is what we are not asking,” said the lobbyist, Canciono.

For his part, Councilman Luis Carlos Leal pointed out that some of the candidates who could be benefiting from this alleged case of “voting positions” are: candidates for the House for Bogotá, Olga Lucia Velásquez, Jorge Torres and Catherine Juvinao; and to the Senate, Andrea Padilla and Angelica Lozano, wife of the mayor of the capital.

He also stated that he filed a complaint with the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation against the candidate Olga Lucía Velásquez, “because it seems that the mayor's databases are being leaked to register people for candidatures and in campaign support that she realizes makes us doubt the way in which the law on the protection of data in the administration”.

For her part, former councilwoman and Senate pre-candidate Andrea Padilla announced that she filed a complaint against Councilmembers Cancino and Leal for the crime of aggravated insult after the allegations of the alleged clientelism in which she was mentioned were heard.

“They did it without any proof, without any support of anything. Echoing hearsay as they themselves say in the podcast of the journalist Duzán, who unfortunately lent herself to these infamies. It is very easy to invent lies about others and show screenshots of alleged anonymous denunciations that you can write, as councilman Carlos Carrillo does now, who also joins this pre-election concert to insult me,” said the congressional candidate.

In turn, activist and House candidate Catherine Juviano, who was also mentioned in the councillors' complaints, published a trill in which she warned Diego Cancino that she recommended “start looking for a lawyer. And hopefully a good one.”

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