(Bloomberg) -- Magistrates at Colombia’s electoral council voted to open an investigation over an alleged breaching of financing limits in Gustavo Petro’s presidential campaign.
The board of the nation’s electoral authority decided to also investigate the CEO of state-controlled oil producer Ecopetrol SA, Ricardo Roa, for his role as chief of the presidential campaign.
The case concerns alleged irregularities in the financing of President Gustavo Petro’s 2022 campaign. The justices will examine contributions by unions of public school teachers, oil workers, political parties, among others, as well as unreported campaign spending that is against electoral rules, the electoral authority, known as CNE, said in a statement.
The decision marks another confrontation between Petro and other branches of the state, with the nation’s courts overturning government decisions and some of the leftist leader’s key appointments. In response to the electoral council’s vote, Petro said in a short message on his X social media account that a “coup d’état has started.”
The Attorney General’s office has also been investigating Roa and Petro’s son Nicolás, while also trying to establish if some of the campaign funds came from criminal sources.
Roa, who took office as the head of Ecopetrol in April 2023 has denied any wrongdoing. Petro is seeking to transition the country away from fossil fuels and has refused to sign new drilling licenses even though oil and coal account for about half of the nation’s exports.
The Council of State, a top Colombian court, recently said that if the electoral authority finds the presidential campaign breached financing rules, it can impose administrative sanctions but can’t oust the president.
The court said that a decision to remove a president from office would have to be taken by a congressional committee.
Such a decision hasn’t been taken, even when investigations demonstrated that the campaign of former President Ernesto Samper received financing from drug cartels in the 1990s.
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