The CNE's response that would maintain the Historical Pact with 20 senators and 32 representatives

This week it became known that the National Electoral Council received a request from a lawyer to declare null and void the 20 seats that the Historical Pact won in the last legislative elections and after the votes were counted. Faced with the complaint filed, Senator Gustavo Bolívar, who is part of the coalition, spoke out to give some peace of mind to those who won those seats.

The request was made by lawyer Hollman Ibáñez Peña, who explained that the reason why, according to him, the CNE should refrain from declaring the election of these people is because the Historical Pact violated “by far the constitutional requirement of a maximum of 15% of the valid vote of the previous election.”

However, through his official Twitter account, Gustavo Bolivar addressed the 20 senators and 31 representatives to the House of the Historical Pact. “Before we coalesced as a Historical Pact, we consulted the CNE and they responded that Petro's votes as senator have value” 0″. Don't pass us 15%. Keep trying,” the senator explained.

The document published by Bolívar shows that the coalition asked the CNE about the application of paragraph 5 of article 262 of the Constitution, which states that “political parties and movements with legal personality that together have obtained a vote of up to fifteen percent (15%) of the valid votes of the respective constituency, may submit a list of candidates in a coalition for public corporations”.

What Senator Bolívar explains is that, in the 2018 legislative elections, Humana Colombia and other parties that did not then have legal personality did not participate, so the coalition's previous vote count was zero. “If they did not get a vote in the 2018 electoral contest, should it be understood that their vote in the elections of March 13, 2022 is counted as zero votes if they did not participate formally? ”, they asked the CNE before they formed the Historical Pactor.

For its part, the entity replied that, in fact, “no vote will be counted for the purposes enshrined in paragraph 5 of article 262 of the Political Constitution, as amended by Legislative Act 02 of 2015”.

In the same way, the former judge of that court, Armando Novoa, referred to Ibáñez's petition and called it a “balloon in the air”. As former Judge Novoa explained to La Opinión, “Article 262 of the Political Constitution allows coalitions to public corporations as the right of parties that, combined in the previous elections, did not win more than 15% of the votes in the constituency. Colombia Humana did not participate in the Senate elections in 2018.”

Given what was said by Gustavo Bolívar, lawyer Hollman Ibáñez already stated: “Faced with this new specific request, the CNE will have to resolve it in CONCRETE, bearing in mind that, as a rule, concepts do not oblige, and the saving of votes. In any case, the last word shall be given to the Council of State in the jurisdictional seat”.

What is the argument made by lawyer Hollman Ibáñez to point out that the Historical Pact did not comply with that measure? The more than 8 million votes that Gustavo Petro won in the 2018 presidential elections. It should be recalled that at that time Petro won those votes with the Colombia Humana movement; for Ibáñez, as that party forms the Historical Pact, they exceed the limit allowed by the Constitution to build coalitions.

“This coalition is made up of Colombia Humana, a party that was recognized as legal personality for having reached more than eight million votes. If we add all these members of the coalition, it gives almost 64% of the vote, which is clearly to the detriment of democracy and the other parties,” Ibáñez said in his petition.

In addition, 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.

However, according to the arguments of Bolívar and Novoa, since Petro did not participate in the Senate elections in 2018, and obtained his seat as a senator through the Statute of the Opposition, the parties part of Humana Colombia could remain in coalition and their votes would be valid.

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