Colombia’s National Electoral Council (CNE) opened an investigation into Senator Ivan Cepeda, the leftist frontrunner in Colombia’s presidential election race, according to local media.
The CNE reportedly agreed to investigate allegations that Cepeda violated regulations regarding campaign contributions ahead of the primary of his political party, Historic Pact, in October last year.
The allegations were made by Senator Jote Pe Hernandez of the Green Alliance party and Juan Martin Bravo, a conservative politician from Cali, and four political activists.
The opposition politicians and the activists claimed received two donations of a PR company, Samat Publicidad SAS, that together amounted to more than 10% of the total private campaign donations.
Samat registered one contribution of $169 thousand (COP609 million). The company’s legal representative contributed another $32 thousand (COP116 million).
Colombia’s electoral law doesn’t allow any private contributor to assume more than 10% of the costs of a political campaign.
Cepeda has reportedly been notified of the investigation and has two weeks to contribute evidence that would prove he did not violate any campaign finance regulations.
The CNE is the highest body when it comes to electoral issues and has been under fire because of its lack of independence as a court.
The court is made up of representatives of the political parties and barred Cepeda from participating in a multipartite primary that sought a broad leftist front in March.
Before that, the CNE prevented the timely merger of leftist parties that sought to form what is now called the Historic Pact.
The court lost much of its credibility after electing an allegedly corrupt politician of the far-right Democratic Center, Alvaro Hernan Prada, as president in 2022.
Prada’s successor, Cesar Augusto Lorduy, was an admitted murderer.
Cepeda and the Historic Pact did not immediately respond to the latest investigation.
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