The press release finishes by stating that the government is transparent and is responsible for ending traditional practices of corruption in Colombia.

What Cuello Baute said

But Cuello Baute’s move has opened the gate to a new discussion and it is, of course, a political game on the eve of a second presidential re-election. The former Superintendent of Notaries and Registration, a position with a strong political influence in Colombian public life, allegedly told  the Supreme Court of Justice that some public notaries were given to former congressmen in exchange for their vote in favor of a constitutional change allowing Uribe to run for re-election as President in 2006. At least that is how it was publicized by the media and even the Center of Investigation of Semana Magazine produced the ‘complete list.‘

Cuello Baute denied knowledge of this list of  ex-parliamentarians that he supposedly presented to the Court and that were published by the national media, according to Caracol:

In his press release to the media, Cuello Baute said that on 24rd June 2009 he filed an impeachment before the Surpreme Court of Justice against two congressmen related to their withdrawal from the Superintendency of Public Notaries. He said also that those persons have a criminal proceeding against them.

Semana Magazine, for example, said that it has excerpts from Cuello’s complaint to the Court, but it does not say how it obtained the information or why Cuello is now denying it. The discussion, of course, is going to be long, especially in the context of the current debate for a second re-election of Uribe and the so called “Yidis-politics.”

The Ghost of Yidis-Politics

“Yidis-Politics” is the name given to the political scandal of April 2008 when former House of Representatives congresswoma Yidis Medina declared that she received ‘gifts’ from officials of the national government in exchange for voting in favor of the constitutional reform that allowed president Uribe to run for a second term in 2006. Her revelation opened investigations against officials. President Álvaro Uribe stated that the government persuades, but does not buy consciences or impose pressure, something similar to what is said in Cuello’s statements.

Early June, the Supreme Court sentenced Teodolindo Avendaño to eight years in prison for bribery. The Court proved that the former parliamentarian received a public notary that, according to Semana Magazine, he then sold. This notary was a ‘gift’ for his favorable vote on the re-election. Colleagues of Avendaño, Iván Díaz Mateus and Yidis Medina respectively received six years  and 3.5 years in prison.

After the bribery sentencing of the three ex-parliamentarians, the president of the Supreme Court of Justice, Augusto Ibáñez, told the media that the Court was considering  investigating at least 33 more congressmen for the same thing. However the Procurator closed the case concluding that they were innocent of bribery, a move that creates doubts as to the motivations of the Procurator if new bribery accusations are proved to be true.

Following the press releases from both the government and Cuello Baute, we are waiting to hear what was said in the Supreme Court.

Cuello Baute

But the former superintendent of public notaries of Colombia hardly has a clean slate himself. In April 2008 a judge of the 34th Criminal Circuit of Bogotá sentenced him to 8 years in prison on corruption charges, especially for pressures he did to some notaries in the Caribbean region. According to investigations by El Espectador at that time, Cuello was also being investigated for bribery. One of the cases exposed by the newspaper was the declaration of the coordinator of notaries’ activities, Milton Amell Contreras, who said that Cuello asked the notary of Montelibano, Andrés Benítez Martínes, to bring him ten head of cattle to his hacienda on 22 December 2005.

This story is to be continued…

Although the silence of President Uribe, his supporters are working very hard to guarantee a third term to the leader they considere one of the best presidents of Colombia. They sent to the Elections´ Department five million signatures of Colombians that support the idea. That means that a new referendum to the Constitution should be done.

Luis Guillermo Giraldo, General Secretary of the Social Party for the National Unity, known also as “Party of the U”, said:

“I dream with a Colombia in 2014, when President Uribe will give up the presidency, with no guerrilla, with no para-militaries, with the dedication of all the State security to fight the drug trafficking”