An unexpected new battle for Comptroller General
In an unprecedented decision, the Council of State annulled the election of Colombia's comptroller general, forcing a new election to be organized from scratch - in a different political context
In an unprecedented decision, on May 24, the Council of State annulled the election of the Comptroller General, Carlos Hernán Rodríguez, and ordered that a new election process be organized. This new election for a comptroller in Congress unexpectedly forces a rather unpredictable battle between Petro and Congress at a difficult moment for Petro, after the death of his congressional coalition.
An election filled with irregularities
The Council of State overturned the election because it found several irregularities in last year’s election process in Congress. Given how last year’s comptroller election was a real telenovela, that isn’t too surprising. From the get-go, the entire process had been marred by unusual maneuvers, tricks and irregularities. Many politicians at the time had denounced potential irregularities at various steps of the process, and they were proven right by the administrative court. It’s the first time that the Council of State annuls the election of a comptroller general.
The comptroller general heads the Contraloría, a (theoretically) independent control body in charge of supervising the management of public resources. Since a 2019 reform spearheaded by the ambitious former comptroller, Carlos Felipe ‘Pipe’ Córdoba, it has become even more powerful, with the authority for exceptional preventive and concomitant fiscal control and the power to fine or suspend civil servants and elected officials. With thousands of jobs, the Contraloría is part of a spoils system sought after by politicians and their networks, and the comptroller usually tends to be friends with most of the political class (those who elected him).
One of the first duties of the new Congress every four years is to elect the comptroller general. Since 2015, the comptroller is elected by Congress (both houses) for a four-year term from a list of ten candidates selected in a public merit-based process, administered by a university. The selection process includes a knowledge exam and a weighted points-based evaluation of CVs (Congress decides on the weighting and scoring), after which the university sends a shortlist with 20 names. Congress forms a special commission which selects 10 finalists from the shortlist.
Given that the comptroller’s term is concurrent with the president’s term, it’s no surprise that the incoming president seeks to ensure the election of a ‘friendly’ comptroller as one of his first moves. Likely anticipating Petro’s victory in 2022, the previous (2018-2022) Congress launched the public selection process unusually early, in February 2022, receiving a shortlist of 20 names from the Industrial University of Santander in March. In April 2022, the special commission selected the ten finalists—nearly all of them were close to outgoing President Iván Duque or comptroller Felipe Córdoba, with no candidates close to the left or ‘alternatives’ making it on the list. In short, the previous Congress rushed to impose the finalists of their liking on the next Congress, something which many argued went against the spirit of the constitution and the law. However, the Council of State ruled that the previous Congress didn’t do anything against the law.
In July 2022, President-elect Petro and the Pacto Histórico were unhappy with the list left behind by the previous Congress, and Petro’s allies, notably Gustavo Bolívar, wanted to get rid of the list and make their own list of finalists, more to their liking (all while denying that they wanted a comptroller close to the government). They got their chance with two court rulings—the first list was struck down by courts in Medellín and Cundinamarca on July 12 and 14 respectively for not meeting gender equity requirements (it only had two women) and because some candidates were ineligible or did not meet the requirements. The Medellín court order gave the Senate 48 hours to fix the list, so in a rush, the outgoing Congress with just four days left to its term ‘fixed’ the list, coming up with a second list, gender-balanced. The second list still wasn’t to some petristas’ liking.
The leadership of the new Congress, led by Roy Barreras (Senate) and David Racero (House), creatively used the court’s decisions as justification to form a new special commission to ‘remedy’ the administrative procedures and select a new list of ten finalists. The special commission also changed the weighting and scoring criteria for each stage of the process, creating a new three-minute interview (of the 20 shortlisted candidates) before the special commission worth 15% of the grade and including the candidates’ knowledge exam score weighted to 70%. Many congressmen raised questions about the legality of these maneuvers, and several of them declined to serve on the commission.
Ultimately, the special commission rejigged the list only a bit, with just one name changing (replacing a woman who withdrew with a man who had been on the first list).
The Council of State annulled the election because the congressional leadership drew up a third list of finalists and modified the selection criteria (after the exams were completed) without any justification. The Council of State said that modifying the selection criteria, initially laid out in the announcement of the public selection process in January, was “unjustified and seriously modified the evaluation parameters”, affecting the “objectivity and legality of the electoral process.” The top administrative court also said that nothing in the court’s decisions allowed Congress to come up with a third list of finalists or modify the selection criteria.
Over the summer, María Fernanda Rangel, widely perceived as the ‘candidate’ of outgoing comptroller ‘Pipe’ Córdoba, emerged as the prohibitive favourite. In early August, she received the support of the traditional parties—the Liberals, Conservatives, La U and Cambio Radical (CR)—nearly enough votes to win. However, petristas and their allies started moving against her—Gustavo Bolívar called her a ‘puppet’ of the outgoing comptroller and claimed she’d guarantee four more years of impunity. For more details about her, please read this old post of mine.
The new government was taken aback by the four traditional parties’ early endorsement of Rangel, and saw it as something of an affront given that three of the four (all but CR) were part of its new ruling coalition in Congress. Petro’s administration was determined not to let her win, and his top political operators at the time (Barreras and then-interior minister Alfonso Prada) lobbied against her in closed door meetings with parties and their caucuses.
The left had been unable to put their supposed preferred candidate, Julio César Cárdenas, on the list, so the Pacto Histórico and the government instead turned their eyes to Carlos Hernán Rodríguez, a dark horse candidate. Rodríguez is a vallecaucano lawyer who had served as Auditor General (2017-2019), a very little known position in charge of supervising the comptroller (he succeeded Córdoba, and was in charge of supervising Córdoba from 2018…). Years ago, he had also been a departmental deputy in the Valle in 2002, when the FARC kidnapped 12 deputies (11 of whom were later killed in 2007), and he had old political affinities with several local politicians including Angelino Garzón (who later became Juan Manuel Santos’ first vice president), Juan Carlos Martínez (a senator convicted of parapolítica) and Juan Carlos Abadía (a controversial governor removed from office in 2010).
The government, in smoke-filled rooms, began lobbying for Rodríguez as a ‘consensual’ and ‘meritocratic’ candidate. The eleventh hour changes to the weighting and scoring criteria by Barreras and Racero gave him a boost: Rodríguez ended up with the highest score, magically making him the most qualified candidate on the sole basis of merit…
Within 48-72 hours, Rangel’s support completely evaporated. After the Pacto formally endorsed Rodríguez on Aug. 16, all other parties fell in line behind him, the Conservatives, then the 16 victims’ representatives, followed by the Liberals, the U, the Greens, CR and even the opposition uribista CD. Rangel withdrew her candidacy the evening before the election.
On August 18, Carlos Hernán Rodríguez was elected comptroller general with 260 votes out of 286, with the support of 94 senators and 166 representatives. Every party, from the ex-FARC (Comunes) to uribismo, voted for him. There were 23 blank votes, a last-minute protest against the controversial process, largely cast by the centre-left and left, including Gustavo Bolívar, Jota Pe Hernández, Jennifer Pedraza, Cathy Juvinao and Susana Boreal. Rodríguez owed his victory to the government, which ended up doing exactly what it had criticized so often while in opposition. After attacking Iván Duque (for good reason) for undermining the separation of powers by installing friends and allies in all high offices, the new government did the same, intervening in the election to ensure the victory of their preferred candidate.
Jennifer Pedraza (Dignidad-Bogotá) immediately announced she’d file a legal challenge against the election for alleged irregularities. Fast forward to May 2022, and Pedraza has been proven correct. According to her, Roy Barreras gamed the election so that Petro could have a friendly comptroller (contralor de bolsillo, or comptroller ‘in the pocket’ of the government, in colloquial language).
Barreras and Racero, in the line of fire, defended themselves. Barreras reiterated that all he did was abide by the rulings of the Medellín and Cundinamarca courts and that he wasn’t wrong, and his tweet was retweeted by Petro (Pedraza pointed out that Barreras’ excuse was completely refuted by the Council of State). Racero said he’d ask for a clarification of the ruling, again claiming that the previous Congress had rigged the process (there’s a good argument to be made, but the Council of State found no irregularities in that).
An unpredictable and unprecedented second election
The Council of State has ordered that a new election be organized again from the very beginning—the public call for candidacies, the first step of the process (the steps of the process are defined by Law 1904 of 2018).
The government didn’t want or need this election. It comes at a difficult moment for Petro and the administration. After months of gradually worsening relations with his main coalition partners in Congress—the Liberals, Conservatives and La U—Petro declared the end of the coalition and shuffled his cabinet in late April. He dismissed the ministers seen as ‘quotas’ of the U and the Conservatives and has decided to bypass the party leaders and negotiate his legislative agenda vote-by-vote with individual congressmen. In other words, the massive two-thirds congressional majority that Petro enjoyed during his brief honeymoon in the summer of 2022 is long gone. The success of Petro’s ambitious legislative agenda—the healthcare reform and soon the labour and pension reforms—now depends on long, slow and piecemeal negotiations with members of Congress. With the healthcare reform, this strategy has proven more fruitful than I expected, managing to win back the support of La U and Liberal representatives.
A lot of key decisions about the selection process for the comptroller are in the hands of the congressional leadership. Yet, the Senate leadership is in limbo since Roy Barreras’ election was invalidated by the Council of State in early May. The interim president of the Senate is Liberal senator Miguel Ángel Pinto, who has scheduled an election to complete Barreras’ term, which ends on July 20, for June 6. The Pacto Histórico, ‘entitled’ to the presidency of the upper house for the 2022-23 legislative year, will present Alexander López as its candidate.
The current congressional leadership, whose terms end on July 20, will decide on the specific terms and details of the selection process as well as the weighting and scoring of candidates’ applications. But it will be the next congressional leadership, elected on July 20, which will end up deciding on the makeup of the special commission that will select the ten finalists from a shortlist of 20 names who passed the knowledge exam. According to the political agreements from last year, the presidency of the Senate in 2023-24 will be held by the Greens. They haven’t defined their candidate yet, but the strongest candidate is Angélica Lozano, who has been critical of the government on some issues.
It’s too early to predict who will be elected comptroller general. Carlos Hernán Rodríguez remains eligible, and could be the man to beat if he runs again, given that he controlled the Contraloría’s chequebook until now. As comptroller, he had begun to appoint political allies of the congressmen who elected him to jobs in the Contraloría, although he didn’t satisfy everyone (some senators privately complained that they lost some of their spots in the Contraloría). This could give him a significant edge over the other candidates. Given that he’s vowed to defend his rights, it’s likely he’ll run again.
However, it’s not certain that the administration would support him again. As I explained above, Rodríguez was not their top choice—they rallied around him late, as a dark horse option to block the frontrunner they disliked (Rangel). With a new selection process, the government will obviously try to put someone close to Petro on the final list. Names like Héctor Carvajal (a lawyer close to Petro also widely seen as the next attorney general), Julio César Ortiz (a lawyer and government representative on the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce) and Vladimir Fernández (legal adviser to the presidency) have been mentioned in petrista circles as ‘government candidates’.
However, particularly in the current circumstances, the opposition (CD, CR) and ‘independent’ parties (La U, Conservatives) in Congress could team up to support a candidate who’d be a counterweight to Petro—like they tried to do with Rangel last summer. Last year, the government’s honeymoon provided it with the political capital and strength necessary to get the other parties on board and to ditch Rangel. Today, the government doesn’t have the political strength to do that.
In these early days, it’s also unclear how long this new election could take—a lot of the timing is up to the congressional leadership (and, indirectly, the government). La Silla Vacía noted that the Pacto and the government may prefer launching the election process early, while the government still retains some room for negotiation with the U, the centrists and some Liberals.
The unexpected election of the new comptroller general will be another test of the relationship between the executive and Congress. The government will obviously try to elect someone close to Petro—a contralor de bolsillo—while some sectors of Congress will be determined to elect someone who’d be a counterweight to Petro, all while the ‘incumbent’ comptroller (Rodríguez) will likely try to keep his job.