An investigation into Petro for electoral financing proposes to drop the case, according to draft

Bogotá.- Investigators from the Accusation Commission of the House of Representatives, who are conducting the preliminary investigation against the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, for alleged irregularities in the financing of his campaign, are inclined to abstain from continuing the case due to "lack of evidentiary support", according to the draft of a ruling exclusively accessed by EFE. The commission's triumvirate, made up of two congressmen from the Historical Pact, the left-wing coalition that brought Petro to power in 2022, and one from the U Party, indicates in that draft "closure of the preliminary investigation stage" that it abstains because a large part of the evidence corresponds to press reports that could not be corroborated. In the event that the text, once finalized, is presented, probably next week, to the Accusation Commission - the only body that can investigate the president - and it approves it, the process against the president would not move towards a formal investigation. The 250-page document also declares expired all complaints filed after 30 days following the 2022 presidential election and orders the ruling to be sent to the Attorney General's Office and the National Electoral Council (CNE) to be used in the proceedings against the manager of Petro's campaign and current president of the state-owned oil company Ecopetrol, Ricardo Roa. This draft is known on the same day that, according to local media reports, the CNE sanctioned Roa and others involved in Petro's presidential campaign for exceeding the financing limits in the first and second rounds by more than 3.5 billion pesos (about $940,000 today) and receiving prohibited contributions.

Petro "didn't manage resources"

The investigative triumvirate of the Accusation Commission, made up of congressmen Alirio Uribe Muñoz, Gloria Arizabaleta and Wilmer Ramiro Carrillo, maintains in the draft of the ruling that "the evidentiary record in this file demonstrates, in diametrically opposed sense" to what was denounced, that Petro "did not allow the attainment or entry of assets or money from prohibited sources, but rather issued express guidelines to prevent it". The document also argues that the president "did not manage the resources of the presidential campaign, nor did he have direct interference in the accounting or financial operations", as Roa's management "exclusively assumed the economic direction of the campaign". "Not only was there no willingness to exceed spending limits, but the existence of internal and external controls aimed precisely at ensuring their compliance was accredited," he adds.

For example, regarding the contributions of the Colombian Federation of Educators (Fecode) —which, according to the CNE, should have been reported because they were allocated to campaign activities, although they were channeled through Colombia Humana, Petro's party—, the draft ruling defends that these resources "did not enter the accounting of the presidential campaign".