14 candidates for the local elections held in Colombia in October have been assassinated so far this year, a NGO monitoring the elections said Thursday.
In an interview with French Press Agency AFP, the director of the Electoral Observation Mission (MOE) said that another 6 survived assassination attempts.
“The situation is very worrisome. There have been 39 violent acts committed against candidates, mostly in [the Departments of] Arauca, Antioquia and Huila,” MOE director Angelandra Barrios told AFP.
“The situation is delicate. To have this number of cases five month before the elections is not a desirable situation for the democratic process,” Barrios added.
The situation in Antioquia, where three candidates were murdered and four received death threats, is the worst, said the director.
“The acts are contribibuted to the guerrillas [of FARC and ELN} and new criminal groups [made up of former paramilitaries and former members of defunct drug cartels],” according to Barrios.
Earlier, the national government called the neo-paramilitary groups and successors of the cartels the biggest threat to the elections. According to Interior and Justice Minister German Vargas Lleras, these groups threaten to disturb the electoral process in 300 of Colombia’s 1099 municipalities.