The organizers of a failed referendum that sought the 2010 reelection of former President Alvaro Uribe will be criminally charged for financial irregularities in the process to organize the popular vote.
The Prosecutor General’s Office announced Friday it is preparing a trial against members of the organizing committee over alleged fraud and the ignoring of financial quota set by the country’s National Electoral Council for referendums.
Ten members of the committee will have to respond to the charges of procedural fraud and misrepresentation.
The referendum that sought a third election run for the controversial, but popular president had been subject to controversy for years; it has been alleged that the organizers used the daughter company of Colombia’s largest and now defunct ponzi scheme DMG to transport signatures collected to force the popular vote through Congress and the committee was slapped on the wrist for ignoring financial limits to the recollection of funds.
In early 2010, less than half a year before the elections, the Constitutional Court sank the referendum despite its ratification in Congress where the Uribista majority supported a third election run of their leader. An opposition lawmaker then decided to sue 86 of his colleagues for approving the referendum while they knew it was not legally proceeded.
Uribe himself never got involved in the referendum and remained quiet about his desire to run for a third term.