Global Courant 2023-05-17 11:05:09
Between rallies, billboards and signs, land or air transfers, caravans and advertising on social networks, political parties report, in the middle of the electoral campaign, an expense of Q9.8 million, an implausible figure, and that is clearly distant. of the paraphernalia deployed by the majority of candidates, especially the presidential ones.
The limited supervisory capacity of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), added to the manifest parsimony of its actions, have contributed to the feeling of laxity in terms of accountability for monetary or in-kind contributions, which by law must be declared as soon as to amounts and benefactors. Although a media control unit was created to manage the advertising schedule of the political parties, it is evident that the large expenditure exceeds the figure reported en bloc. These omissions, concealments or oversights constitute serious electoral infractions. However, until today they have not been sanctioned to set legal precedents.
Raffles and distributions of all kinds of items have proliferated in the promotional activities of candidates for mayors, councils and the presidency, especially in urban and rural areas of the province, but also in metropolitan neighborhoods. These strategies exacerbate clientelism and undermine legitimate and authentic political activity. It is a crude and cruel use of precariousness, which does not solve any problem, but which with it tries to buy the will of the citizen, thus prostituting the core of the exercise of conscious suffrage. However, the authorities only witness these phenomena, if they ever become aware of the latent mercantilism.
The speeches of some former officials who are now running are deplorable, who, in the absence of arguments and sometimes with accusations, offer to give cash to certain groups of the population if they win. The ruling party tries it with the bonuses granted to alleged ex-militaries or sudden increases to pensioners. They are not the first nor the only ones to display their despair. In addition to being harmful acts for the treasury, they constitute a kind of bribery.
The TSE recently confirmed the fine to a political party for failing to comply with campaign reports in 2020 and 2021, for which it should have been suspended. This demonstrates the slowness with which magistrates manage disciplinary processes. Upon taking office, three years ago, they stopped all sanctions, including the cancellation of organizations. This is how they rescued several parties from the flames and only closed the Unión del Cambio Nacional, due to its obvious and indefensible links. The infiltration of dirty money, coming from drug trafficking, human trafficking, contraband or corruption is the greatest danger for the citizen vote.
In border municipalities and coastal areas there are distributions of food, trucks with gravel or sand, drinking water or cash, with all kinds of pretexts and an undeniable condition. The parties that allow these exchanges, despite the fact that they do not understand and claim to be unaware of these tricks, are complicit in the deterioration of democracy. Announced cooperation agreements between the TSE and the Special Verification Intendancy or the Comptroller General of Accounts have so far not yielded any results. In any case, the electoral law itself has no teeth, because they were removed by the same people who now make fun of it.
