After three hours of voting, Colombia’s Supreme Court on Thursday failed to elect a new national prosecutor general for the sixteenth time in a year, because they could not reach a consensus on which candidate should fill the position.
Margarita Cabello Blanco continues to lead the vote as court’s preferred candidate, winning twelve votes this time round. She was followed by Marco Antonio Velilla with seven votes and Jorge Anibal Gomez with three.
The election failed yet again because none of the candidates managed to obtain the sixteen votes required to elect a prosecutor general.
Supreme Court Judge Francisco Javier Ricaurte said that several of his colleagues were blocking the selection of the prosecutor general out of personal and political interests.
The court’s failure to elect the prominent role means that the prosecutor general will not be achieved before Colombian President Alvaro Uribe leaves office on August 7.
Uribe’s outgoing administration at the end of July presented a bill to the nation’s House of Representatives proposing that the responsibility of selecting the country’s prosecutor general be transferred from the Supreme Court to the president.
Outgoing Minister for Justice and the Interior Fabio Valencia Cossio said that the bill is a joint initiative with the incoming government of President-elect Juan Manuel Santos.
However, incoming Minister for the Interior German Vargas Lleras has said he intends to withdraw the project proposed by the Uribe administration.