The reasons why the CNE could overthrow the 20 seats of the Historical Pact

After several militants of the Historical Pact, Gustavo Petro's political alliance, announced that they won 20 seats in the Senate of the Republic after the scrutiny, National Electoral Council (CNE) came a petition that seeks to overthrow that coalition and prevent them from legislating in the next period.

This was announced by the Antioquia newspaper El Colombiano, which had access to the request sent by lawyer Hollman Ibáñez Peña, which claims that the Historical Pact violated “by far the constitutional requirement of a maximum of 15% of the valid vote of the previous election,” the litigant said through his Twitter account.

Ibáñez filed his complaint with the CNE on the morning of this Thursday, March 31, in the early hours of the day, and in it he assures that the Petro coalition allegedly incurred nullity because they exceeded the number of parties that can join in a political alliance for elections in Colombia.

The lawyer has not only been a judge of the electoral authority, to which he appeared to send his complaint, but also has knowledge of the National Civil Status Registry, where he also worked.

Ibáñez referred to the more than 8 million votes that Gustavo Petro won in the 2018 presidential elections and said that, as that party forms the Historical Pact, they exceed the limit allowed by the Constitution to build coalitions.

“In the case of the Historical Pact, being made up of human Colombia, they exceed that 15% determined by the constitution, they reach almost 62%, then the National Electoral Council should not declare the election of the elected members of that coalition,” the lawyer told the microphones of El Colombiano.

In his document, the litigant cited the Colombian Magna Carta where it is assured that those who violate the provisions must face the penalties or “consequences of any unlegal and in this case unconstitutional behavior”.

Ibáñez is convinced that the CNE will rule in his favor and will knock down the 20 seats that petrianism won in the elections of March 13. Moreover, he says that since the Constitutional Court restored the legal personality of Human Colombia, that is enough to declare seats null and void because the limit allowed to aspire to a popular corporation would have been exceeded, through the grouping of several communities.

Along these lines, the plaintiff - and clear contradictor of Gustavo Petro - asks the CNE to exclude seats from the Historical Pact “for having submitted its list of candidates through a coalition made up of political parties and movements that together exceed the maximum percentage set in article 262 of the Political Constitution”, said the jurist in the document that he is in possession of that medium in Medellín. For now, Gustavo Petro has not addressed the subject.

This information is known after the Historical Pact exceeded two million eight hundred thousand votes and, in turn, added an additional seat in the Senate for the 2022-2026 legislature.

Although initially the possibilities of a vote count would leave the doors open to continue adding seats, the cancellation of this and the continuation of the general count opened the way for another seat in the upper chamber of the national congress, as announced by Senator Gustavo Bolivar, around midnight in this Tuesday.

In this way, the results weigh the Historical Pact with a total of 2,800,730 votes, adding one more seat and forcefully becoming the predominant and most voted political force in the country in legislative elections. Although taking into account the votes found, the threshold does not change much, political cards continue to be moved that allow this coalition to give strength to the presidential coalition.

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