Elections 2022: The municipalities of Antioquia at risk of violence - Medellín - Colombia

With 5,066,000 citizens eligible to vote, Antioquia has the greatest voting potential in the country.

This was confirmed by the National Registrar, Alexander Rocha, who assured that, in addition, for these elections to Congress and consultations on March 13there is another aspect that can affect the departmental public order.

“Antioquia has four districts of peace, which makes it a department with public order problems, but we trust that the Ágora Plan can reach these municipalities and that Antioquia vote calmly,” said the Registrar.

Said plan was presented during the installation of the Departmental Table for Electoral Guarantees on February 9 in Antioquia.

There, the Minister of the Interior, Diego Palacios, explained that said plan will be responsible for ensuring security in the territories, for which more than 100,000 men will be available in the country’s at-risk areas.

“In Antioquia we have prioritized 13 municipalities, in which we will work hand in hand with the Army and the National Police to guarantee the security of those territories. Likewise, we have made progress in ensuring that more than 60% of the candidates for peace seats have a protection scheme,” the Minister specified.

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In Antioquia we have prioritized 13 municipalities, in which we will work hand in hand with the Army and the National Police to guarantee the security of those territories

The prioritized municipalities in the department are: El Bagre, Tarazá, Valdivia, Anorí, Ituango, Cáceres, Caucasia, Nechí, Zaragoza, Remedios, Segovia, Murindó and Turbo.

Many of these municipalities coincide with those that both the Electoral Observation Mission (MOE) and the Ombudsman’s Office warned are at extreme and high risk of violence.

The EOM report indicates that 40% of Antioquia is at some type of risk for this problem. That is to say, that of the 125 municipalities of the department, in 50 there is risk and, of these, 14 have an extreme level.

These are: Amalfi, Angostura, Anorí, Briceño, Cáceres, Frontino, Ituango, Murindó, Peque, Remedios, Segovia, Tarazá, Toledo and Valdivia.

“The EOM recommends that authorities make a presence through Electoral Monitoring Commissions, extended to lists and candidates in order to preventively address the situations in these municipalities,” the entity said.

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For its part, the Ombudsman’s Office released Alert 004 of 2022 on February 17, which warns of national risk scenarios in the framework of the electoral process, in which municipalities and non-municipalized areas have been identified in 32 departments with electoral risk mainly due to the incidence of illegal armed groups.

In the case of Antioquia, there are seven municipalities with extreme risk and 28 with high risk. In the first category are: Bello, Medellín, Cáceres, Caucasia, El Bagre, Tarazá and Murindó

This alert also warns about the possibility of carrying out armed stoppages, gun plans, threats, attacks on members of the public force, as well as against people involved in the election “expressions emanating from the social movement, political groups or citizens who are against of illegal armed groups in the territories; victim population in participation in the election of special constituencies, human rights defenders, public officials, ethnic peoples, new political expressions, former FARC combatants”.

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Antioquia was left with 1,200 more tables and 123 new voting positions

Given these and other eventualities that may arise, the Seventh Division of the National Army, which operates in Antioquia, reported that they are advancing in training military personnel in Foundations for Democracy.

“This as a complement to the importance of knowing roles, missions and responsibilities to fulfill in the next electoral days. In addition, a module on Command Responsibility was implemented, ”said the entity.

Despite the early warnings and the risk maps, the authorities expect the number of voters to increase for these elections, due to the changes in the ballot and the increase in the number of polling stations.

“We increased 14,000 polling stations in rural areas in the country, and Antioquia benefited from this, since it was left with 1,200 more tables and 123 new voting positionswhich means that there should be more presence of the State”, specified the National Registrar.

MEDELLIN

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