Judges admit Uribe election fraude

Miguel_Clavo says on May 20, 2006, 11:35:

We just love a Conspiracy, dont we? Its all the latest rage!! Makes us all CSI sleuthes and Inspector Clouseau out of us....since we dont have much to do nowadays.....=)

maybe we are just paranoid or afraid of our ouwn shadows??? hahahha...

Just my opinion...

Miguel_Clavo.......faltan 41 días.....

"Ignorance is a Weapon of Mass Destruction..."

"I would rather die living life, than to live a dying life."........ Oh, and my PM is always ON. Great Bumper Sticker: "Home of the Free, Because of the Brave"

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Wastelandlive says on May 20, 2006, 11:48:

BFD Tell me it isn't so. Voter intimidation in Colombia? NEVER.

What a non-story.

Wasteland

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Sr Tertius says on May 20, 2006, 13:12:

If only I were strong enough... to ignore idiocy. Quick search using Google:

http://semana.terra.com.co/wf_InfoArticuloNormal.aspx?IdArt=93812
http://semana.terra.com.co/wf_InfoArticuloNormal.aspx?IdArt=93850
http://www.revistacambio.com/html/portada/articulos/4647/

(Note the "portada" part. This was twice on the front page of Semana)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/latin_america/newsid_4755000/4755533.stm
http://www.semana.com/wf_InfoArticuloNormal.aspx?IdArt=93732

The Christians?
http://iblnews.com/story.php?id=13577

The Peruvians too
http://www.elcomercio.com/noticia.asp?id=41135&seccion=5

http://www.americas.org/item_26666

The commies of hrw... well, whatdaya expect?
http://hrw.org/spanish/docs/2006/04/17/colomb13206.htm

http://www.miami.com/mld/elnuevo/news/world/americas/14532087.htm
http://www.semana.com/wf_InfoArticuloNormal.aspx?IdArt=93809

I stopped in page 7... non-story indeed.

Real news? Here:
http://www.foxnews.com/foxlife/americanidol/index.html

Damn!

"When the finger points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger" (Chinese proverb)

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Miguel_Clavo says on May 20, 2006, 13:24:

I would prefer not to hang my hat on whats in print..we all know that the media are totally objective in reporting, they dont put a spin on their articles, are experts in their field of writing, and do not have an interest in selling magazines either....yup, just the source of information i want to rely on to form my opinion on a subject matter.....but be strong, my brother! there are classes and excercises that can help you get stronger! Subversive Duck Lifting is a favorite! =)

...Just my opinion...

Miguel_Clavo.......faltan 41 días.....

"Ignorance is a Weapon of Mass Destruction..."

"I would rather die living life, than to live a dying life."........ Oh, and my PM is always ON. Great Bumper Sticker: "Home of the Free, Because of the Brave"

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platano says on May 20, 2006, 14:25:

Please put me down! LOL! plátano

plátano

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Sr Tertius says on May 20, 2006, 14:51:

What? Trust the media? When we have all these luminaries in PBH, with such insight, never repeating lame witticisms or name-calling, and never ever overusing sarcasm to substitute for lack of humour? I mean, the Google tool in PBH is like a direct link to the best of Colombian culture, history, politics, economics and even showbiz. I would trade investigative journalism ANYTIME for the solipsistic monologues of PBH. Hands down!

Did I mention the absence of sarcasm?

"When the finger points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger" (Chinese proverb)

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platano says on May 20, 2006, 14:55:

Sr. Tertius, Well said. (no sarcasm)

plátano

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Miguel_Clavo says on May 20, 2006, 15:11:

investigative journalism ? righttt.. you subscribe to ... National Inquirer too, Sr T? that why your posts are so lame....who mentioned the PBH Google link?..keep relying on 30th hand information and "objective interpretation" and "investigative journalism"..(maybe 20 years ago when journalists and the media had integrity)..its good for you and your posts....seems you are humor-challenged as well....sorry for hurting your feelings.....but sensitivity lessons are forthcoming!


...Just my opinion...

Miguel_Clavo.......faltan 41 días.....

"Ignorance is a Weapon of Mass Destruction..."

"I would rather die living life, than to live a dying life."........ Oh, and my PM is always ON. Great Bumper Sticker: "Home of the Free, Because of the Brave"

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Miguel_Clavo says on May 20, 2006, 15:22:

Ummmm....solipsistic monologues of PBH? Does that ..... include yours as well?

Just my opinion...

Miguel_Clavo.......faltan 41 días.....

"Ignorance is a Weapon of Mass Destruction..."

"I would rather die living life, than to live a dying life."........ Oh, and my PM is always ON. Great Bumper Sticker: "Home of the Free, Because of the Brave"

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Sr Tertius says on May 20, 2006, 15:40:

Q & A with me, holder of the Truth "who mentioned the PBH Google link?"

Me, who else?

"keep relying on 30th hand information and "objective interpretation" and "investigative journalism"

Miguel, you seem to understand 3rd grade English, and that's why it is surprising that you did not get my derision towards the so-called investigative journalism. Try again.

"seems you are humor-challenged as well"

And I've said it SO many times. The reinvention of the lightbulb seems to be quite popular lately. There I go again, repeating my own metaphors. He he.

"sorry for hurting your feelings"

Not at all. And yes, of course I include my own monologues in my criticism. Duh. And my own lame use of sarcasm, and my... wait, what was this thread about...? Oh, and the highly creative ways in which threads are turned into rants about lame ideological resentments.

"When the finger points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger" (Chinese proverb)

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Miguel_Clavo says on May 20, 2006, 15:54:

Sra Tertius..Oh most evolved (and self-proclaimed) man of ... supreme intelligence! at (pardon me while i puke.....=) )please enlighten those of us who are lowly 3rd graders!!! i think that there are only a select few who truly understand you...the Elephant man had the same problems...you truly are in a world of your own, but then again, most legends in their own minds are that way...jejejeje....i hereby nominate Sra Tertius for the PBH Supreme Intellect Award! Any second nominations?

BTW, stop hurting my feelings....


Just my opinion...

Miguel_Clavo.......faltan 41 días.....

"Ignorance is a Weapon of Mass Destruction..."

"I would rather die living life, than to live a dying life."........ Oh, and my PM is always ON. Great Bumper Sticker: "Home of the Free, Because of the Brave"

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Wastelandlive says on May 21, 2006, 11:42:

I'm not even sure what the pissing match is about... ... but I probably should be.

Does anybody have a link to an article that summarizes to date the entire scandal surrounding Jorge Noguera and Rafael García?

And perhaps somebody can tell me - Sr. T? - if the alleged fraud is actual fraud, how many votes for Uribe would it account for? And what was his margin of victory? Does it come close to casting the legitimacy of Uribe's mandate in doubt?

Thanks.

Wasteland

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juancegomez says on May 21, 2006, 11:49:

The real question is not whether there was any fraud Trying to avoid the ad hominems that seem to have dominated the discussion, so please forgive me for ignoring all that.

Let's look at the facts:

-Local frauds occured in the 2002 elections.

Local frauds (whether outright or indirect) are an inherent part of Colombian electoral machineries, and have been so long before Uribe ever came to power.

How do you think that the Liberal and Conservative "caciques" earned that nickname? Through pure, honest politics (if such a thing has ever existed)? Even Horacio Serpa had many "caciques" on his side in 2002 (and still has a few, though considerably less after many defections, today).

-Paramilitary and guerrilla pressures occured during the 2002 elections.

Guerrillas prevented people from voting for Uribe (or at all), and paramilitaries pressured people in favor of Uribe (or against other candidates).

That kind of pressure, for or against certain candidates, is nothing new in Colombian politics, nor is Uribe the first candidate in the history of Colombia that has been elected under such circumstances. Not at all.

So the real question isn't what the headline proclaims, but rather something a thousand times more nuanced:

-What degree of responsibility belongs to each party involved?

Did Uribe intentionally order the fraud? Was it carried out on the initiative of some of his political allies? The paramilitaries themselves? Who did what, why and how much?

The mere existence of a fraud doesn't answer that.

-Was the fraud significant on a national level or only on a local one? Would Uribe have won without it?

Consider that Uribe had a lead of more than 2 million votes over Horacio Serpa, and that the largest fraudulent vote allegation (because the figure hasn't been confirmed and the headline doesn't change that) is merely 300,000.

To say the least, I don't believe that Uribe would have grossly lost the election on a national level even if Colombian elections suddenly became unusually cleaner than they have ever been. That means that, if anything, there would have been a second round of voting.

As for the issue of legitimacy...from a morally absolutist point of view, any elections with any hint of fraud would be illegitimate. Meaning that practically all Colombian elections, including those where "leftwing-leaning" people have been elected, would be illegitimate (I've been reading some analysis about the 1930s-1940s elections and, let me tell you, things weren't that much prettier back then, not by a long shot...in fact, rather uglier at times).

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Wastelandlive says on May 21, 2006, 12:30:

Interesting... Well, I'd call that ONE real question.

Certainly if Uribe himself was a party to the fraud, then he should - suspend your disbelief here - be prosecuted and made ineligible to run again... a consequence that would have been law according to his failed referendum, an initiative which many also consider defeated by voter intimidation... oh the sweet irony!

But I'm not sure I'm understanding what little I've read, which is why I'm looking for a good, exhaustive article. The news is all over the map on this one.

JG - you say 300,000 votes are attributed to this alleged fraud. But what I've read is that he won 300K+ votes in the region where the fraud is alleged to have been committed, which is a different thing entirely. And then I've read elsewhere that this was about the Para's getting their own guys into office in Senatorial elections, which seems an entirely different thing altogether. Both together? The same people in charge?

Just looking for info. Don't go all philosophy professor on me JG - your point that it is about scale, not substance is well taken.

I have this instinct that this is all about opportunism and politics at a level that we're not even seeing... especially as we slide into a new campaign. I mean, what if we're talking about 5K votes here? 10K? 30K? What's next? New allegations of narco-trafficing, and maybe a detailed report on Uribe's parking tickets?

Maturing democracy at its finest.

Perhaps there's hope yet for Colombia... after all, Nogiera and García are engaged in that most public of acts, mud-slinging, and they haven't been whacked.

Yet.

Wasteland

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juancegomez says on May 21, 2006, 12:58:

Wastelandlive It's true that there has been some confusion, and I'm not 100% sure about all the details either.

"But I'm not sure I'm understanding what little I've read, which is why I'm looking for a good, exhaustive article. The news is all over the map on this one."

There isn't one really good, exhaustive article yet, I'm afraid, but multiple non-exhaustive ones that refer to different aspects of the issue...and most of them in Spanish, logically.

"JG - you say 300,000 votes are attributed to this alleged fraud. But what I've read is that he won 300K+ votes in the region where the fraud is alleged to have been committed, which is a different thing entirely. And then I've read elsewhere that this was about the Para's getting their own guys into office in Senatorial elections, which seems an entirely different thing altogether. Both together? The same people in charge?"

Well, both things seem to apply.

-Rafael Garcia, the jailed DAS guy, initially claimed that Uribe got 300,000 fraudulent votes in Magdalena (the department), later specified to refer to the entire Magdalena (the region, with several departments).

-According to the available stats, Uribe did get 300K+ votes in the entire Magdalena region as a whole. Mathematically, one could assume that the total vote count (337,075) includes both fraudulent and non-fraudulent votes, in an unknown proportion.

-Then it was specified that Rafael García himself only personally participated in a fraud for the legislative elections in 2002. He just heard that "they (the congressmen and/or the paras, not sure) were going to repeat the same fraud" for the presidential elections.

-Jorge Noguera himself was Uribe's campaign chief in (IIRC) the department of Magdalena. He was later named DAS chief (2002-2005). Not sure about what he was doing, if anything at all, in the legislative elections.

-It has been shown (Claudia López, who worked for Semana.com and now publishes opinion pieces at EL TIEMPO, has written some articles on this) that frauds did apparently occur in at least some locations during the 2002 elections (congressional and presidential), resulting in usually high vote counts (when compared to the region's historical voting % and/or preferences). Some of the favored congressional candidates have been suspected of paramilitary affiliation (whether voluntarily or in some other way, such as extortion).

That's pretty much the basics of the accusation.

Noguera has said, in his defense, that Uribe's 2002 campaign petitioned to the Registraduría and/or to the Electoral Council because of a lack of guarantees in Magdalena. One of Serpa's former 2002 Magdalena campaign chiefs (now closer to Uribe) has stated that they had no knowledge of any possible fraud in the region at the time.

"Just looking for info. Don't go all philosophy professor on me JG - your point that it is about scale, not substance is well taken."

I'm trying to avoid that and stick to the facts right now, I hope.

"I have this instinct that this is all about opportunism and politics at a level that we're not even seeing... especially as we run slide into a new campaign. I mean, what if we're talking about 5K votes here? 10K? 30K? What's next? New allegations of narco-trafficing, and maybe a detailed report on Uribe's parking tickets?"

Beats me.

"Perhaps there's hope yet for Colombia... after all, Nogiera and García are engaged in that most public of acts, mud-slinging, and they haven't been whacked."

At least that seems to be the case, yeah.

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Wastelandlive says on May 23, 2006, 08:59:

Ooooohhhhh Sr. Tertius... Won't you please come out and play?

Nobody seems to know as much about this scandal as you do.

Wasteland

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Sr Tertius says on May 23, 2006, 10:41:

? Semana and Cambio have reported more than I would know about this.

Inteview with García: http://semana.terra.com.co/wf_InfoArticuloNormal.aspx?IdArt=93812

Uribe's version:
http://semana.terra.com.co/wf_InfoArticuloNormal.aspx?IdArt=93850

Semana's verification:
http://www.semana.com/wf_InfoArticuloNormal.aspx?IdArt=93809

Cambio's report:
http://www.revistacambio.com/html/portada/articulos/4647/

Read and make your own opinion.

"When the finger points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger" (Chinese proverb)

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Wastelandlive says on May 23, 2006, 12:16:

So cautious, Mr. T, so studiously nuetral... Rarely have I seen you so diplomatically balanced.

But I barely read Spanish! You can't help us out here?

Wasteland

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Sr Tertius says on May 23, 2006, 14:13:

Ohhh... Mr... Maybe keeping up a BDSM webpage leaves you a lot of free time, but not my job. Sorry, primary sources are generally in Spanish. Maybe you'll find the wealth of opinion in PBH more informative?

"When the finger points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger" (Chinese proverb)

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