An emergency lawsuit filed Friday is seeking to nullify of the candidacy of Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, who is running for president for former President Alvaro Uribe’s party. Zuluaga’s recently revealed involvement in alleged illegal wiretapping was cited as reason for the requested annulment.
The “tutela” seeks the Cundinamarca Administrative Tribunal to order the Prosecutor General’s Office, the National Electoral Council and the Registrar General’s Office to “cancel the inscription of the candidacy with aspiration of becoming President if the Republic of Mr. Oscar Ivan Zuluaga.”
The lawsuit, filed by a Bogota attorney, said that Zuluaga’s candidacy is a violation of Colombians’ rights “to a dignified democracy, political participation, to elect and be elected, and to respect for public dignity and sovereignty.”
The lawsuit was spurred by a video that appeared in weekly Semana a week ago — eight days before Sunday’s elections — in which Zuluaga appears while being informed on intelligence obtained by Andres Sepulveda, a hacker arrested earlier this month on charges he was spying on ongoing peace talks with rebel group FARC.
According to Colombia’s constitution, the Constitutional Court is obligated to follow-up on the emergency lawsuit within 10 office days.
The lawsuit was filed before the same court that recently successfully ordered President Juan Manuel Santos to reinstate Gustavo Petro, the Bogota mayor whose impeachment the president had signed off on only days before returning him to power.
The filed request for annulment came only two days before the elections that analysts have called the “dirtiest” in recent history.