The Electoral Justice warned about drug financing in provincial campaigns

The National Electoral Chamber summoned the representatives of the political parties of national scope with the objective of analyzing all the issues related to the operating system of this year's elections and, in that meeting, warned about the need to adjust the controls in

, whether from money laundering or drug trafficking to finance campaigns.

Already in 2014, the electoral justice had claimed through an agreement the need to deepen the cooperation ties between state entities -national and provincial- to facilitate the exchange of information "to prevent, detect and sanction the use of funds of origin proceeds from money laundering, drug trafficking or other illegal sources of financing".

In these elections, the concern is focused on the fact that several provinces split their elections and in many of them there is no current legislation for the control and supervision of the campaigns.

Specifically, each district should control the origin of political financing funds, "but there is no provincial accountability."

For this reason, the National Electoral Chamber warned the parties in the framework of the meeting of the Consultative Council that was held this Tuesday that it will not keep what they put in the balance sheet but that "they will have to prove the expenses."

An important source of electoral justice told Clarín that it is common in each election for there to be a significant number of statements from the national parties that are disapproved because the origin of the contributions was not proven, but he admitted that there are difficulties in being able to prove the origin of those funds that are questioned and end up applying only sanctions to political parties.

The most emblematic case was that of the 2007 K campaign, which, according to a 2016 report by the Financial Information Unit (FIU), detected financial links between the drug mafia, Mexicans involved in the ephedrine route, and drugstores that Cristina Kirchner-Julio Cobos contributed to the formula.

In the 2014 decision, the court had already pointed out that there are "different modalities of illegal financing" of electoral campaigns, either through the division of resources simulating donations from various people;

or the use of parallel accounts that do not appear in the accounting records of the campaign and whose owner is not the respective political group.

The embezzlement of campaign resources is also raised;

the replacement of licit contributions by others of illicit origin;

as well as financing with money from abroad and of criminal origin.

The underlying issue is that in the case of national parties they usually include the expenses of the provincial elections in the same accounts, which makes it difficult for the electoral Justice because the origin of that expense is outside its orbit.

For this reason, from the CNE they demanded that the parties' representatives have more control over the income so that there are no funds of illicit origin in the campaign.

As they explained to this newspaper, both the financing of drug traffickers or organized crime tends to focus on provincial or community elections because "many times they infiltrate local officials more easily for control of the territory."

The presidential debates already have a date

During the meeting that the National Electoral Chamber held with the representatives of the political parties to consider operational, logistical and organizational issues of the 2023 electoral process and measures aimed at optimizing the transparency of the elections, the dates of the presidential candidate debates were also defined.

At this meeting it was agreed that Sundays, October 1 and 8, would be for the presidential debates and, given the possibility of a possible second round, a third debate on November 12.

Information was also provided on the different technologies to be used, such as the Biometrics pilot tests and border control.

With respect to the electoral process, the dates for the closure of the provisional register were reported, which will be next April 25, legal and patrimonial aspects of electoral campaigns and promotion of public figures.