Global Courant 2023-04-11 11:05:22
It is evident that the current TSE magistrates were not fully prepared to face the challenge of an electoral process, with all its complexities. On the one hand, the current legislative ruling party can be blamed for having elected them hastily, during the first days of suspension due to the pandemic, when there was not even an option to go to the chamber to claim disagreements. The new members enjoyed the benefit of the doubt, which they did not know how to take advantage of, not even with the work that their predecessors had already done; they saved parties sentenced to disappear, such as UNE and FCN, for electoral crimes. They eliminated the UCN only because their drug-related ties were already frankly undeniable. Of course, they gave it all the time in the world so that its members could be managers and its bench serve as an official ally.
That parsimony was only the prelude to other blunders to occur in the 2023 election process. First they tried to buy, by hand and without evaluating competitive options, an onerous digital system that put the custody of the vote at risk. Only the citizen outcry and the journalistic denunciation stopped that adjudication that was almost cooked. Then came the attempt to keep secret the plenary sessions of magistrates with prosecutors from political parties, under anodyne pretexts.
Now, there is a delay in the delivery of credentials to candidates, despite the fact that the electoral campaign officially started on March 17. The ruling party headed the list of authorizations, while other parties claimed the delay prior to Holy Week. They kept quiet as their candidates accredited them, an attitude that denotes their defense of convenience and not that of the democratic good.
Something similar applies in cases of registrations denied or suspended under unequal criteria. Some are sanctioned for allegedly early campaigning, while others, who could also qualify in said practice, are left free. Unless there are flagrant transgressions, the parties themselves should demand free electoral competition, in defense of the full right of citizens to choose their authorities.
The legal challenges to TSE resolutions also affect the delay in the endorsement of candidacies and the Supreme Court of Justice does little to delay public hearings, such as the one that was scheduled for yesterday, but was suspended. Little can be expected from magistrates who protect themselves from pretrial proceedings and whose pattern of actions points to affinities with the current ruling party, whose term expires in 278 days, while the CSJ has been in excess for more than three and a half years thanks to irresponsibility , negligence or intent of the Legislative.
May 10, that is to say within a month, is the deadline for the printing of electoral ballots to elect a president, mayors, deputies and members of the idle Parlacén. If there is an expectation of participation of some 25,000 candidates and the TSE has only delivered a little more than a fifth of the credentials, there are 80% of applicants who still cannot present their proposals and plans at the risk of being accused of “early campaign” . This lost time is a factor of inequality that arose from the slowness of the TSE to review files. Today, in a hotel, under the auspices of the electoral authority, a “non-aggression pact” between parties is being signed, an absurd declaration, because being politicians and entities governed by public law, such respect should be obvious.
TSE delays induce inequality
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