The controversy over the choice of seats for people of African descent in Colombia does not cease. First, all the controversy related to activist Miguel Polo Polo led public opinion to focus its attention on the election of those seats. Along these lines, it became known that the other Afro seat was left in the hands of a political ally of the controversial conservative senator Laureano Acuña.
This is Ana Rogelia Monsalve, who would not be a citizen belonging to a blackness and who is part of the machinery of her brother Rumeniggue Monsalve Álvarez, mayor of the municipality of Malambo in the department of Atlántico.
Former Afro candidate Luis Ernesto Olave revealed a statement from the Ministry of the Interior which shows that Ana Monsalve had also recognized herself as an indigenous person from a community in Malambo.
“Polo Polo was not the only indigenous to the Afro Curul, we have another one that was left in the Curul and nobody mentions it. It is Ana Monsalve, sister of the mayor of Malambo and first lady of the municipality, file of U Senator David Name. Indigenous also recognized himself,” Olave said on his Twitter account.
Ana Rogelia Monsalve won approximately 26,263 votes in the last legislative elections on March 13 and reached that seat thanks to her brother's machinery as municipal president.
According to the National Civil Status Registry, of the more than 25,000 votes that the elected representative obtained, 48% would represent those given to her in Malambo, a municipality that exceeds 129,148 inhabitants in 2019, according to official figures.
It should not be forgotten that the mayor of the malamberos arrived at the mayor's office of that place with the endorsement of the Conservative Party, the same collective in which Laureano Gómez is active, today investigated and incriminated for alleged buying votes in the case of Aida Merlano.
As it became known recently, Ana Monsalve worked in her brother's government as social manager of Malambo. In addition, Jair de Jesús Barceló Thomas, who coordinated his campaign to win the seat for blacks in the next parliamentary term, would have been Jair de Jesús Barceló Thomas, whom the media assures served as finance secretary of that municipality in 2020.
Ana Rogelia, who becomes the first woman in her municipality to become a congressman, will be part of the House of Representatives for the Community Council of Black Communities Palenque Vereda Las Trescientas y Galapa.
Another questionable political move was released by the Organization of Independent Journalists of Colombia (Opicol), which claims that the sister of the president of the malamberos has direct links with Senator José David Name Cardozo, as well as with Beatriz Barraza, former mayoral candidate of Soledad, another municipality who would be a key token for his election as a congressman.
On Ana Rogelia's social networks she has been seen with important political leaders such as former Vallecaucana governor Dilian Francisca Toro, today director of the U Party and former Barranquilla councillor and former district mayoral candidate Rafael Sánchez Anillo.
It should be noted that, according to the Criterion newspaper, the mayor of Malambo had a strong fight with Senator Laureano Acuña because he wanted to run his sister, the now controversial Ana Rogelia Monsalve, as a candidate for the Senate of the Republic. “It was very uncomfortable because they (Rumenigge and Acuña) were nail and filth in political matters,” a councilman told the media outlet quoted.
It should be noted that Acuña, who is president of the Congressional Ethics Committee, has been involved for months in a scandal over alleged electoral corruption. Details here.
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