It will be the National Electoral Council (CNE) that will decide whether the presidential candidate of the Colombian Team, Federico Gutiérrez, can appear under his nickname 'Fico' on the first round card. This was requested by the National Registry of Civil Status itself when it consulted that electoral body whether such a procedure is allowed.
The request was made after this Tuesday, March 29, the positions that the different applicants will occupy on the card that Colombians will deposit at the polls on May 29 were known.
The document, released by the Registrar, shows that the center-right candidate appears as 'Fico Gutiérrez' and not by his full name, a situation that did not go unnoticed by several citizens, who asked the entity led by registrar Alexander Vega for explanations.
For this reason, the electoral delegate registrar, Nicolás Farfan, sent a document to the CNE asking him to clarify several aspects related to the names, photos and other information that citizens will see when voting in the first round.
On the other hand, Farfan also requests that the entity clarify the following question: “Should candidates be identified with all their names and surnames? Or as they requested, can they choose whether they appear only with some of their names and/or surnames?”
It should be remembered that this nickname was the same nickname that former mayor paisa used on the card of the Team's consultation for Colombia, in which he was the winner. On that occasion, the Registrar's Office ruled on the matter and assured that “at the will of the candidate Federico Gutiérrez, from the interparty consultation he requested that he appear on the electoral card as Fico and not as Federico, the same application made for the presidential card”.
Now, it will be the CNE Plenary Hall itself that will decide whether there will be changes to the card they released this week. If so, the applicant will no longer appear as Fico, but with his real name, Federico Gutiérrez. For now, the electoral authority announced that they received the request and said that in the coming days they will release a response to the complaint.
Moreover, Gutiérrez himself spoke out about it and explained the reasons why it is registered on the card with the nickname under which he has become known throughout his political career. “I am registered and on the card can be done as' Fico 'Gutiérrez. This is the record and everything is within the Law. I just tell people, remember that there I am, on the top right, there I was,” said the candidate.
The criticism of Fico using his alias in the presidential candidates' card did not go unnoticed by petrianism. For example, Senator-elect Roy Barreras disagreed and, through his Twitter account, said: “The Registrar's electoral card indicates that a candidate is a person. And a person, according to the Civil Code, has a name in the civil registry. 'Fico' is not a name, but an alias. They allow it for unfair competition. The card must be changed,” said the congressman.
It should be recalled that Law 62 of 1988, which imposed the most recent provision on the subject of the names of candidates in the current Electoral Code, only says this about election cards for the President of the Republic: “In the election for President of the Republic, citizens shall vote with electoral cards that shall be printed with the symbols, emblems and colours of the different political parties or movements participating in the voting, with clear printing of the name and surnames of the respective candidate”.
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