Fugitive politician Aida Merlano explained how Colombia’s presidents are elected through elaborate election fraud during the first court hearing after her arrest in Venezuela.
The neighbor’s president, Nicolas Maduro, must have been drooling; His Colombian counterpart Ivan Duque has called Venezuela’s government a dictatorship.
Merlano, Colombia’s first and ever politician sentenced to prison over election fraud, destroyed any illusion Colombia is a democracy.
Instead, the fugitive politician told in detail how presidents come to power through elections that are rigged by a corrupt elite.
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Merlano broke prison in October two weeks after she was sentenced to 15 years in prison in a trial she claimed was a sham from the beginning.
Two weeks after she was arrested in Maracaibo, the politician said that “if I return, I want that before I return everybody knows the truth.”
While Merlano’s truth exclusively incriminated Maduro’s right-wing adversaries, the politician confirmed vote-buying practices anti-corruption advocates have been denouncing for ages.
Aida Merlano
Merlano confirmed that clans formed around elite families, business cartels and organized crime groups ultimately decide who becomes president, and have done so ever since she entered politics at 16.
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The gist of the election fraud
Aida Merlano
The judicial cover-up mechanism
If Colombia wants to end corruption, taking down former chief prosecutor Nestor Humberto Martinez would bring down the whole house of cards, according to Merlano and many other critics.
After being the judicial adviser of banking conglomerate Grupo Aval of Luis Carlos Sarmiento and before he was elected chief prosecutor by the Supreme Court, former President Juan Manuel Santos in 2014 appointed him “superminister,” a job that didn’t really come with a description.
Aida Merlano
While the so-called “Operation Car Wash” began putting people in prison in 2015 over the bribes they received from engineering firm Odebrecht and others, Martinez returned to Grupo Aval, which was working together with the Brazilians.
A Grupo Aval auditor, who died under mysterious circumstances in 2018, discovered that the conglomerate was engaged in corruption that year.
Aida Merlano
Merlano said she never voted in favor of Martinez’ bid to become chief prosecutor in 2016, but no lawmaker did. The Supreme Court elected Martinez from a shortlist put forth by Santos.
Martinez’ election was a disaster. Not only did the chief prosecutor try to cover-up the Odebrecht scandal, he appointed an anti-corruption chief who mediated bribes between congressmen and corrupt Supreme Court magistrates, a scandal that was discovered by the United States’ Drug Enforcement Agency that became known as “the Toga Cartel.”
Aida Merlano
Unlike Merlano, Martinez has so far gotten away with the slew of criminal activity he has been accused of. The former persecutor general was not the first though.
Martinez’ predecessor, Luis Eduardo Montealegre, was involved in a major financial scandal and two of former President Alvaro Uribe’s chief prosecutors have been tied to paramilitary groups. All are free men.