Cepeda campaign begins vote-buying investigation – Colombia News

Leftist presidential candidate, Senator Ivan Cepeda, appointed an attorney to lead investigations into alleged vote-buying by his opponent, the far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella.

In a press conference, Cepeda said Saturday that his campaign received information about “possible financial irregularities and illegal activities on the part of Mr. De la Espriella’s campaign.”

The senator said to have received evidence of “alleged vote-buying or the transfer of large sums of money for that purpose in various parts of the country,” and the use of fake videos that seek to destroy his credibility.

Given that Mr. De la Espriella is taking the shady path of manipulating artificial intelligence, running social media campaigns.., and swaying voters not through reason or policy, but by other means, we are going to take action.

Ivan Cepeda

Cepeda said that he had asked attorney and anti-corruption activist Miguel Angel del Rio to lead the investigation from Barranquilla, the largest city in the Caribbean region.

In a post on social media platform X, Del Rio said that he accepted to ” lead the nationwide campaign against corruption and vote-buying by electoral mafias” and was setting up “the legal teams that will support this initiative.”

In a response, De la Espriella released a video in which he gave US deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau a list of leftist politicians and businessmen who would be supporting Cepeda and would be buying votes.

Let me remind you that the U.S. government is watching you. The visa revoker already has his sights set on the corrupt. Thank you for defending democracy, dear deputy secretary Landau.

Abelardo de la Espriella

Del Rio said that the list was an “unacceptable profiling that will have legal consequences” and stressed that the Supreme Court pointed to the clan of Barranquilla Mayor Alexander Char, an ally of De la Espriella, as having led a “criminal pact” to buy votes in 2018.