Council of State: the Registry is responsible for endorsing Luis Gilberto Murillo as Sergio Fajardo's formula

Responding to a right of petition presented by the Network of Citizen Oversight, the Council of State (CNE) assured that it is not aware of the inabilities that candidates for the presidency or vice presidency may present, therefore, it is not the competent entity to revoke the registration of Luis Gilberto Murillo as Sergio's teammate Fajardo, of the Esperanza Center Coalition.

According to the CNE, article 91 of the Electoral Code states that competition must be carried out before the National Civil Status Registry.

“Consequently, this Chamber is also not entitled to cancel or revoke such registrations. (...) It is important to remember that the constitutional and legal regime distinguishes between the qualities or requirements for being a candidate for a popularly elected office, from the inabilities and incompatibilities for those who intend to be elected to it in order to cancel or revoke such registrations,” the Council of State held.

It should be remembered that at the end of March, the Citizen Oversight Network denounced that the Constitutional Court issued a ruling in 2012 ordering Murillo to deny the opportunity to hold any public office for the rest of his life.

“The National Electoral Council, through a decision given by Judge Pedro Felipe Gutiérrez, decided to raise awareness and open the investigation or procedure for the revocation of the registration of Mr. Gilberto Murillo Urrutia's candidacy,” said Pablo Bustos, president of the Oversight Network.

The complainant organization assured that the judgment, which spans more than 48 pages and was issued in 2013, indicates that when Murillo was director of the Regional Autonomous Corporation for Sustainable Development of the Department of Chocó (Codechocó), he incurred embezzlement by diverting resources that were defined in the State budget. The politician used five million pesos to repair the roof of a school in Andagoya when the money was for mining sanitation.

For this reason, the High Court of Quibdó sentenced Murillo to six months in prison. It should be noted that more than a decade later, a much deeper case was opened against him that ended his inability.

The process began in 2011 and was created precisely to apply for Murillo's disability. In the end, in 2013, the measure was granted and the politician was dismissed, since at that time he held, for the second time, the position of governor of Chocó.

It should be noted that Murillo filed an action to annul the decision, but the Supreme Court denied it, and the Constitutional Court subsequently confirmed (in judgment SU917/13) the decision to suspend it for life. It was explained that the ruling is in line with the decision of the Council of State which denies it the principle of favourability to apply to public office, and that it dismissed him in 2012 because his inability was still in force.

Despite this, according to Luis Gilberto Murillo's campaign, this decision was finally canceled and the political leader was exonerated in 2015. An indication that this decision was not implemented is that in 2016 he was appointed as Minister of Environment by President Juan Manuel Santos, and until the end of his administration, two years later, he was able to exercise without controversy over the disability

So far no member of the Centro Esperanza Coalition has commented on the document that would prevent Murillo from being Fajardo's formula.

If Murillo is ordered to retire as Fajardo's teammate, the latter must choose another person to accompany him in this electoral race. Days before the Chocoan politician was confirmed as his vice-presidential formula, there was talk that communicator Mabel Lara or Senator Juanita Goebertus could accompany Fajardo in his aspiration.

This situation must be defined soon, as the country is less than two months away from the first presidential round. So far there are nine candidates, with their respective formulas, aspiring to reach the Casa de Nariño.

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