Congress: parliamentarians pass a law to save themselves from ONPE fines

The Congress of the republic approved this week a law of impunity and amnesty for former candidates who committed misconduct in terms of campaign financing and that to date they have ongoing sanction processes by the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE).

The norm was approved on Thursday with massive support: there were 91 votes in favor of Free Peru, Popular Force, Popular Action, Alliance for Progress (APP), Avanza Country, Popular Renewal and We are Peru.

However. Eight of those who voted in favor acted as judge and party, since to date they have open processes for the payment of possible fines, according to official information from the ONPE. But, with the approved text, these parliamentarians would be free from the sanctioning process.

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This law arises after the presentation of two projects presented by congressmen Enrique Wong Pujada (Avanza País) and Waldemar Cerrón Rojas (Free Peru).

prescription trap

The final text approved on Thursday in plenary modifies several articles of the Political Organizations Law. On the one hand, they drastically reduce the fines, but, as if that were not enough, they also consigned a formula to send to the file sanction processes currently underway.

In this case, it is a paragraph that they add within article 36-B of the norm, where they set a fairly short term for prescription (see attached document).

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“The statute of limitations for the ONPE determine the existence of the infraction committed by the candidates is 1 year, counted from the commission of the infraction”, says the approved law.

It turns out that many of the current congressmen were candidates in 2021 and they had to file their first maximum campaign revenue and expenditure report on March 19. But they didn’t.

At the time, La República reported that a total of 1,006 candidates had not delivered this first report. Several of these omissions eventually became congressmen.

Several candidates who failed to submit a report to ONPE were elected congressmen. Photo: diffusion

So, if the infraction was committed on March 19, with the omission of the information, to the present month of April the cases have already prescribed, since in the ONPE there is a serious delay in the processing of cases and they have not reached the final stage to determine violations.

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In approximately July 2021 the ONPE issued resolutions ordering the start of sanctioning processes, but they did not reach the final stage of setting the sanction or fine.

Thus, hundreds of candidates would be saved with the prescription. Among them, several congressmen.

Legislators benefited

The Republic requested official information from ONPE regarding specific cases of congressmen with open disciplinary proceedings. In this way, we were able to establish that there are 12 legislators with processes (see table with resolutions).

Of these 12, eight had no qualms about voting in favor of the law that prescribes their open files at the ONPE.

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This is the case of Fujimorist Jorge Morante who never delivered his first report in 2021. Two presented after the deadline: Raúl Doroteo (Popular Action) and Edgar Tello (Free Peru).

Three have been dragging processes since the complementary elections of 2020, when they did not deliver their reports: Silvia Monteza and Luis Aragón, from Acción Popular, and Rosselli Amuruz (Advance Country).

Susel Paredes has been dragging a process since 2018, when she was a candidate for mayor. and Jenny Lopez (People’s Force) faces a process for receiving contributions from a prohibited source. All of them voted for a law that archives their cases.

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Autograph in the hands of the Executive

This is another case where that Fuerza Popular and Peru Libre voted together for a counter-reform.

The autograph approved on Thursday must now be sent to the Executive Branch. President peter castle will have to decide whether to enact the text or return it to Congress.

Of the 130 congressmen, in total there were 34 who in 2021 they had resolutions on the initiation of sanctioning administrative processes by the ONPE.