[NYTr] Colombia Tries to Safeguard Elections; Violence Has Killed 27 Candidates

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Prensa Latina, Havana
http://www.plenglish.com

Colombia Tries to Safeguard Elections

Bogota, Oct 22 (Prensa Latina) Six days ahead of the general elections
in Colombia, the government is implementing measures to protect them
from fraud and possible violence, which has already caused death to 27
candidates.

Interior Minister Carlos Holguin reported that the intelligence
authorities will oversee, starting on Monday, the campaigns all over
the country to avoid vote buying, one of the most common crimes in
Colombian elections.

Experts said the intelligence work should be strenuous, because the
closer the elections are, the larger the amount of money involved in
all kinds of fraud.

According to El Tiempo daily, the increase of violence and shameless
vote buying keep authorities worried, so much that President Alvaro
Uribe changed his whole agenda for this week to concentrate himself on
the electoral issue.

The president has planned to visit the areas most affected by violence
against candidates, to encourage their communities to vote on Sunday
and assess security conditions.

The president even offered publicly on Saturday a reward of 50 million
pesos, around $25,000, to those who report about the perpetrators and
brains behind attacks against candidates.

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