{"id":10981,"date":"2022-06-18T18:31:24","date_gmt":"2022-06-19T01:31:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/?p=10981"},"modified":"2022-06-18T18:38:35","modified_gmt":"2022-06-19T01:38:35","slug":"colombian-pacific-election-hours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/colombian-pacific-election-hours\/","title":{"rendered":"Colombia's Pacific region on fire just hours before the elections"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Colombian
Photo: Ivan Castaneira. Global Exchange \u2013 Peninsula 360 Press<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Irma Gallo, with information from Iv\u00e1n Castaneira<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just hours before the second round of elections in Colombia, the Colombian Pacific region, where the Gustavo Petro-Francia M\u00e1rquez ticket of the Historic Pact won the majority of votes in the first round, is facing violence and intimidation by armed groups and the government to frighten them and dissuade them from voting freely and peacefully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ali Bantu Ashanti is the Coordinator of Pacific Vote<\/a>, an initiative to defend free elections in the Pacific region of Colombia. This region is made up of 62 municipalities, with a population of approximately 1,537,000 inhabitants, the majority of whom are Afro-descendants. Historically, it has a low political-electoral participation and is marked by vote-buying, corruption and violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ali Bantu Ashanti, Pacific Vote Coordinator Photo: Ivan Castaneira. Global Exchange \u2013 Peninsula 360 Press<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In an interview with Iv\u00e1n Castaneira, Ali Bantu Ashanti expressed his concern about the current situation in the Pacific:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is fear and uncertainty. People are worried throughout the Pacific region. Right now I am in the municipality of Guapi, touring this region with the lawyers of Voto Pac\u00edfico who decided to join us to monitor, to denounce electoral fraud, vote buying and the human rights violations that we are experiencing in this beautiful and powerful region of the country that is unfortunately mired in violence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the municipality of Bagad\u00f3 yesterday, for example, there were strong clashes between the national army and the ELN group, directly violating the right of people to participate freely in Choc\u00f3. More than 49 thousand people are currently living in overcrowded conditions,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd what can be said about the two people who were murdered in a hospital in the municipality of Guapi or the indigenous social leader who was murdered in Cauca and many other leaders who have been murdered in the department of Valle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Photo: Ivan Castaneira. Global Exchange \u2013 Peninsula 360 Press<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The leader called on the national and international community \u201cto keep watch, to conduct surveillance, so that ultimately peaceful elections are held in Colombia and that people can go to the polls without fear, without fear of being killed because they vote for one candidate or another.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also denounced the concern that exists for the 40 young people imprisoned by the police in the context of the so-called Democracy Plan. \u201cWe are very concerned about what is happening to these young people who mobilized in what was called the social uprising.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Bant\u00fa Ashanti and the Voto Pac\u00edfico organization, the repression of young people is retaliation by the Duque government, \u201cwhich does not want free and transparent elections to be held.\u201d He is also convinced that the National Registrar is not providing guarantees for people to trust the National Registry: \u201cit has flatly refused to comply with the ruling of the Council of State that requires it to conduct an audit in an independent and impartial manner.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This note was produced with the support of a group of journalists covering the second round elections in Colombia, sponsored by the organization\u00a0<\/em>Global Exchange<\/em><\/a>\u00a0in collaboration with Peninsula 360 Press.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may be interested in: People in the Colombian Pacific feel very close to Francia M\u00e1rquez<\/a><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Por Irma Gallo, con informaci\u00f3n de Iv\u00e1n Castaneira A una cuantas horas de que se realice la segunda vuelta de las elecciones en Colombia, la regi\u00f3n del pac\u00edfico colombiano, en donde la f\u00f3rmula Gustavo Petro-Francia M\u00e1rquez del Pacto Hist\u00f3rico tuvo mayor\u00eda de votos en la primera vuelta, enfrenta violencia e intimidaciones por parte de grupos […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":10982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[295,14,8],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10981","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-colombia","8":"category-cover","9":"category-usworld"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10981"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10988,"href":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10981\/revisions\/10988"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peninsula360press.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}